Operated by the New York Board of Fire Underwriters, the New York Fire Patrol was organized in 1839 to patrol lower Manhattan. Their job was twofold: to discover fires and to prevent losses to insured properties. The New York Fire Patrol evolved, and in 1867, a state charter was granted to legally extinguish fires and conduct salvage operations throughout New York City. The New York Fire Patrol is the oldest paid fire service in the United States, and it also remains the last insurance-funded fire salvage corps in the country. Today, the fire patrol continues to serve the city of New York, responding to over 10,000 alarms each year alongside the Fire Department of New York.

Written by two experts on Fire Department history, this book documents the evolution of city firefighting from the earliest bucket brigades through the arrival of the Superpumper fire trucks and the latest advances in protective gear. The book culminates with the World Trade Center disaster of September 11, 2001. 70 illustrations, 2 maps.

Fire Department City of New York honors the department's 137 years of dedicated service to the City of New York by chronicling its history of the department with a updated listing of all the firefighters that have been killed in the line of duty. This book features 272 pages of which 67 are full-color pages. It has been updated to include the photos of all 343 individuals that so bravely lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

Cites successful examples of community-based policing.

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner: “The terrifying story of the worst disaster in the history of the US Forest Service’s elite Smokejumpers.” —Kirkus Reviews A devastating and lyrical work of nonfiction, Young Men and Fire describes the events of August 5, 1949, when a crew of fifteen of the US Forest Service’s elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of the men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy in this extraordinary book. Alongside Maclean’s now-canonical A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Young Men and Fire is recognized today as a classic of the American West. This edition of Maclean’s later triumph—the last book he would write—includes a powerful new foreword by Timothy Egan, author of The Big Burn and The Worst Hard Time. As moving and profound as when it was first published, Young Men and Fire honors the literary legacy of a man who gave voice to an essential corner of the American soul. “A moving account of humanity, nature, and the perseverance of the human spirit.” —Library Journal “Haunting.” —The Wall Street Journal “Engrossing.” —Publishers Weekly