FirePix1075
01-04-2007, 12:25 AM
This great story is in today's Washington Post....
***********
Chasing the Heat
Late-Night Blazes Draw Thrill-Seekers, Good Samaritans And Entrepreneurs
By Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
During the day, Mike Goldstein is a suit-and-tie professional, a D.C. lawyerwho represents colleges and universities, a member of the board of directorsof the Washington Ballet and a member of the tony Cosmos Club. But no matter how busy his days are, when he gets a call in the night, he drops what he's doing and heads into the frigid air.
Close to midnight one recent night, it was a guy named Vito calling. Minutes
later, Goldstein was downtown, the collar of his DCFD Rehab Unit jacket turned up against his silver hair. From inside a canteen truck, he handed out breakfast bars and Gatorade to a half-dozen soot- and sweat-covered firefighters who had just extinguished a car fire that had threatened to spread to an apartment high-rise in the Penn Quarter neighborhood.
"This is not bad," Goldstein said as evacuated residents shivered on the
sidewalk. It's when it's 3 a.m. that his wife says, "Dear, you're out of your
mind."
Goldstein, 63, is in the District's motley brotherhood of fire buffs. He's one
of the dozen or so civilians who follow the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical
Services Department to blazes of two alarms or more to volunteer to serve
refreshments or to videotape firefighting techniques as coaches would record a football game. Some sell their videotapes for profit, and at least one found a way to turn his hobby into a career.
What's the attraction, especially at 2 o'clock in the morning?
"Every fire is a study in how it's fought," said Vito Maggiolo, a fellow buff
who called Goldstein that December night and then beat him to the scene. "It's kind of a play by play."
"We see more than the flames and the smoke," said Maggiolo, by day an
Emmy-winning assignment editor for CNN. "We see the battle. We understand it."
The buffs have grown accustomed to quizzical looks from friends, even spouses. They cringe at the cracks about pyromania. Maggiolo says "fire bugs," or arsonists, are the evil cousins of fire buffs, and he maintains that buffs' interest simply reflects a common curiosity honed to a deeper level.
But it's not all about the fire itself. Buffs say their efforts pay tribute to the public service that rescuers perform daily.
"I need this -- my mouth was dry," said D.C. fire Lt. Fred Morris when Goldstein handed him Gatorade at the Penn Quarter fire. The fire buffs, Morris added, "are always here. Day or night, cold or hot."
They're also there at the worst moments.
Goldstein rushed to the Pentagon, along with the D.C. fire department, after
terrorists crashed a plane into the building Sept. 11, 2001.
Goldstein said it's awful to see fires on the TV news, "but it's much worse
standing there," witnessing families with small children, "and what they've got
wrapped around them is [all] they've got."
For many fire buffs, the fascination started when they were children. Maggiolo remembers his mother carrying him to the Engine 62, Ladder 32 station in his native Bronx when he was 5. After his father died five years later, he found himself back in the fire station again and again, looking, he said, for a father figure. He has made himself a regular in firehouses ever since, although poor eyesight prevented him from a firefighting career.
Maggiolo, 54, is the D.C. fire department's official videographer and a
coordinator of the Friendship Fire Association, a volunteer support unit with
more than 50 members. There are similar groups across the country, but Maggiolo and Goldstein stand out for their willingness -- eagerness, actually -- to roll out of bed at 3 a.m. and race to a fire.
One night in every four, Maggiolo can be found sitting behind the cracked-glass door that reads "Rescue Squad 1," near the Verizon Center downtown, waiting for the next big call. Firefighters in the station's Platoon 2 respond to the city's most serious blazes, and Maggiolo thinks they're among the department's most elite ranks.
Maggiolo often shoots videotape for D.C. fire department training and for use by television stations. Firefighters call out "Vito!" as he trudges through
waterlogged streets after a fire has been extinguished.
In the den of his Chevy Chase home, a pair of Emmy statuettes for CNN coverage of the 1989 protests at Tiananmen Square and the first Gulf War sit atop a corner bookstand. They're easily overshadowed by a wall full of awards for fire service volunteerism and a collection of fire hats from around the globe.
His wife, Colleen Reeks, said she has learned to accept her husband's firehouse nights. But she can't stand it when he leaves a room with the fire scanner blasting.
"I think what drives me crazy . . . is the radios," Reeks said.
Fellow videographer Jim Davis is a more controversial buff, making a living by
selling his tapes to media outlets.
Six nights a week, Davis, 53, parks his navy blue Dodge minivan at an Exxon station near New York and Bladensburg avenues in Northeast. The perch is ideal for the freelancer, offering highway access to crime and fire hot spots in the District and Prince George's County.
Keeping tabs on a news pager and a scanner, Davis sits there night after night, starting at 10 and heading home at 4 a.m.
"It's a lot of waiting; waiting and hoping," Davis said. "There's been weeks
where nothing happened -- no shootings, no fires, no accidents. Nothing."
Why do it?
"It's exciting, and it pays good -- when the money's there," said Davis, who
previously worked at a traffic news service and as a firefighter for another
department. Last year, he made $43,000, also working as a freelance writer for fire news Web sites.
As a child in the 1960s, Davis followed his father, a photographer of the
Bethesda rescue squad. When his father died eight years ago, Davis inherited his camcorder and happened upon a quadruple shooting on Kenilworth Avenue in Prince George's.
He put the camcorder to work.
"No media showed up, and they paid me for it -- $400 for nothing. I said, 'This isn't bad,' " Davis said. A career was born.
But the job has its drawbacks. Davis occasionally gets hassled by police
officers and firefighters, and he sometimes battles with other freelancers. He
gets miffed when Maggiolo gives video to news stations for free, especially
because Maggiolo enjoys greater access.
There is no vacation, no sick leave. He has never married because women "don't understand" his line of work, he said.
In his spare time, Davis -- like Maggiolo -- likes to hang around firehouses. On
his one night off, he often connects to a Web site that offers radio feeds of
fire dispatch calls from Baltimore and New York.
As for Goldstein, the lawyer at Dow Lohnes, the fire fascination goes back even further. Relatives told Goldstein that when he was 3 or 4, he dressed himself for the first time so he could run after firetrucks en route to a blaze.
His son is carrying on the tradition. Fifteen years after Goldstein started handing firefighters coffee and doughnuts, his only child, Eric, has become a volunteer firefighter and paramedic. After he graduates from college this month, he will work for the Illinois state fire academy.
"I guess it runs in the genes," said the elder Goldstein, who lives in Cleveland
Park. "But he's the real thing. I drive the doughnut truck.''
Minutes after the Penn Quarter fire was extinguished, the radio blared news of an apartment fire at 24th and M streets NW.
The canteen rolled into the night.
***********
Chasing the Heat
Late-Night Blazes Draw Thrill-Seekers, Good Samaritans And Entrepreneurs
By Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
During the day, Mike Goldstein is a suit-and-tie professional, a D.C. lawyerwho represents colleges and universities, a member of the board of directorsof the Washington Ballet and a member of the tony Cosmos Club. But no matter how busy his days are, when he gets a call in the night, he drops what he's doing and heads into the frigid air.
Close to midnight one recent night, it was a guy named Vito calling. Minutes
later, Goldstein was downtown, the collar of his DCFD Rehab Unit jacket turned up against his silver hair. From inside a canteen truck, he handed out breakfast bars and Gatorade to a half-dozen soot- and sweat-covered firefighters who had just extinguished a car fire that had threatened to spread to an apartment high-rise in the Penn Quarter neighborhood.
"This is not bad," Goldstein said as evacuated residents shivered on the
sidewalk. It's when it's 3 a.m. that his wife says, "Dear, you're out of your
mind."
Goldstein, 63, is in the District's motley brotherhood of fire buffs. He's one
of the dozen or so civilians who follow the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical
Services Department to blazes of two alarms or more to volunteer to serve
refreshments or to videotape firefighting techniques as coaches would record a football game. Some sell their videotapes for profit, and at least one found a way to turn his hobby into a career.
What's the attraction, especially at 2 o'clock in the morning?
"Every fire is a study in how it's fought," said Vito Maggiolo, a fellow buff
who called Goldstein that December night and then beat him to the scene. "It's kind of a play by play."
"We see more than the flames and the smoke," said Maggiolo, by day an
Emmy-winning assignment editor for CNN. "We see the battle. We understand it."
The buffs have grown accustomed to quizzical looks from friends, even spouses. They cringe at the cracks about pyromania. Maggiolo says "fire bugs," or arsonists, are the evil cousins of fire buffs, and he maintains that buffs' interest simply reflects a common curiosity honed to a deeper level.
But it's not all about the fire itself. Buffs say their efforts pay tribute to the public service that rescuers perform daily.
"I need this -- my mouth was dry," said D.C. fire Lt. Fred Morris when Goldstein handed him Gatorade at the Penn Quarter fire. The fire buffs, Morris added, "are always here. Day or night, cold or hot."
They're also there at the worst moments.
Goldstein rushed to the Pentagon, along with the D.C. fire department, after
terrorists crashed a plane into the building Sept. 11, 2001.
Goldstein said it's awful to see fires on the TV news, "but it's much worse
standing there," witnessing families with small children, "and what they've got
wrapped around them is [all] they've got."
For many fire buffs, the fascination started when they were children. Maggiolo remembers his mother carrying him to the Engine 62, Ladder 32 station in his native Bronx when he was 5. After his father died five years later, he found himself back in the fire station again and again, looking, he said, for a father figure. He has made himself a regular in firehouses ever since, although poor eyesight prevented him from a firefighting career.
Maggiolo, 54, is the D.C. fire department's official videographer and a
coordinator of the Friendship Fire Association, a volunteer support unit with
more than 50 members. There are similar groups across the country, but Maggiolo and Goldstein stand out for their willingness -- eagerness, actually -- to roll out of bed at 3 a.m. and race to a fire.
One night in every four, Maggiolo can be found sitting behind the cracked-glass door that reads "Rescue Squad 1," near the Verizon Center downtown, waiting for the next big call. Firefighters in the station's Platoon 2 respond to the city's most serious blazes, and Maggiolo thinks they're among the department's most elite ranks.
Maggiolo often shoots videotape for D.C. fire department training and for use by television stations. Firefighters call out "Vito!" as he trudges through
waterlogged streets after a fire has been extinguished.
In the den of his Chevy Chase home, a pair of Emmy statuettes for CNN coverage of the 1989 protests at Tiananmen Square and the first Gulf War sit atop a corner bookstand. They're easily overshadowed by a wall full of awards for fire service volunteerism and a collection of fire hats from around the globe.
His wife, Colleen Reeks, said she has learned to accept her husband's firehouse nights. But she can't stand it when he leaves a room with the fire scanner blasting.
"I think what drives me crazy . . . is the radios," Reeks said.
Fellow videographer Jim Davis is a more controversial buff, making a living by
selling his tapes to media outlets.
Six nights a week, Davis, 53, parks his navy blue Dodge minivan at an Exxon station near New York and Bladensburg avenues in Northeast. The perch is ideal for the freelancer, offering highway access to crime and fire hot spots in the District and Prince George's County.
Keeping tabs on a news pager and a scanner, Davis sits there night after night, starting at 10 and heading home at 4 a.m.
"It's a lot of waiting; waiting and hoping," Davis said. "There's been weeks
where nothing happened -- no shootings, no fires, no accidents. Nothing."
Why do it?
"It's exciting, and it pays good -- when the money's there," said Davis, who
previously worked at a traffic news service and as a firefighter for another
department. Last year, he made $43,000, also working as a freelance writer for fire news Web sites.
As a child in the 1960s, Davis followed his father, a photographer of the
Bethesda rescue squad. When his father died eight years ago, Davis inherited his camcorder and happened upon a quadruple shooting on Kenilworth Avenue in Prince George's.
He put the camcorder to work.
"No media showed up, and they paid me for it -- $400 for nothing. I said, 'This isn't bad,' " Davis said. A career was born.
But the job has its drawbacks. Davis occasionally gets hassled by police
officers and firefighters, and he sometimes battles with other freelancers. He
gets miffed when Maggiolo gives video to news stations for free, especially
because Maggiolo enjoys greater access.
There is no vacation, no sick leave. He has never married because women "don't understand" his line of work, he said.
In his spare time, Davis -- like Maggiolo -- likes to hang around firehouses. On
his one night off, he often connects to a Web site that offers radio feeds of
fire dispatch calls from Baltimore and New York.
As for Goldstein, the lawyer at Dow Lohnes, the fire fascination goes back even further. Relatives told Goldstein that when he was 3 or 4, he dressed himself for the first time so he could run after firetrucks en route to a blaze.
His son is carrying on the tradition. Fifteen years after Goldstein started handing firefighters coffee and doughnuts, his only child, Eric, has become a volunteer firefighter and paramedic. After he graduates from college this month, he will work for the Illinois state fire academy.
"I guess it runs in the genes," said the elder Goldstein, who lives in Cleveland
Park. "But he's the real thing. I drive the doughnut truck.''
Minutes after the Penn Quarter fire was extinguished, the radio blared news of an apartment fire at 24th and M streets NW.
The canteen rolled into the night.