Fire Duty, Don Whitney, 2005
Don Whitney worked as a firefighter in one of New England's oldest, most densely populated cities - Portland, Maine - during the most challenging period in the history of the American fire service - the 60s, 70s, and early 80s.
Fire Duty contains the same on-the-job realism, the same felt action of the fireground, and the same wonderful, outrageous humor readers discovered throughout Don Whitney's acclaimed book The Blackened Shield.
Fire Duty is a collection of tales about fires in crumbling triple deckers, fires in hospitals, fires in flea bag hotels, in funeral parlors and massive cold storage warehouses with ammonia coursing through the pipes, fires on wharfs and piers and boats. Don has stories about enthusiastic rookies and equally enthusiastic vets: about too talkative arsonists, and about fire investigators who've been away from a hose line for so long they can't remember how a fire starts: about dramatic rescues in the storm ravaged ocean, and about the quiet rescue of one little girl's Christmas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Don Whitney grew up in a working class neighborhood of Portland, Maine. Twenty seven firemen lived in the neighborhood, which also had three firehouses. Don was appointed to the Portland Fire Department in 1966. After a trying, tough, enjoyable career, he now lives outside the city with his wife and children. The Blackened Shield is his second book.
5 3/4" x 8 3/4", 249 pages, 44 B&W photos, ISBN: 1-879848-31-7, hardcover, BF4924 / $24.95
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