We’re in bushfire season again. I’m sure you noticed. With huge bushfires raging along the Great Ocean Road, quite a number of locals had what I imagine was a less-than-merry Christmas. Nevertheless, when they’re not leaving adorable notes, the CFA and fire-fighters around Australia are doing a pretty amazing job of saving lives and property on behalf of anyone and everyone. We take this for granted; however, public fire brigades actually haven’t existed for the majority of history.

Ayn Rand fans will be thrilled to know that the first serious fire brigade seems to have been a private affair. It was established in Ancient Rome by a charming gentleman named Crassus.¹ He established a force of some 500 slaves. At the first sound of alarm they would race directly to the blaze and, once they had arrived, do absolutely nothing. Whilst they waited, Crassus would seek out the owners of the property, and possibly nearby properties, and buy them up cheaply. After all, what was a building worth if it was about to be burnt down? After purchasing the property at a steal, Crassus would have the fire put out and the enterprising capitalist would be left with a property whose value was far more than what he paid. Although not really an appropriate historical source, I think this is best summed up by Wilson and Wilson:

Crassus had collected his fortune by inventing both the fire brigade and, simultaneously, a legal extortion racket.

Surprisingly, this was too overtly rapacious even for the Romans, and a few different ways of organising fire response seem to have been tried. In 6AD Augustus got fed up with this and established the vigiles urbani. This was one of the most extensive fire brigades ever established. It began with 3,500 men and was later doubled to 7,000. By way of comparison, the current London Fire Brigade consists of just over 5,000 personnel.² In fact, it seems that the vigiles had more fire fighters per square acre than any other fire brigade in history.³

These numbers aren’t entirely surprising. As is pointed out repeatedly by Rainbird, if you don’t have modern technology to deliver water, you have to make up for it with man power. According to the previous source cited, bucket chains can deliver about 180 litres of water per minute, pushing up to over 500 in the initial burst. Additionally, the Romans had actual pumps at their disposal and even ballistas. If you’re wondering what this last item was for, until the invention of modern pumps, the only way to fight any real conflagration was to simply demolish anything in its path. I imagine local home-owners would have been thrilled.

Nevertheless, what seems to be the primary reason for the large numbers is the need for a quick response. When your only strategy for dealing with a large fire is demolishing large swathes of the city, it is fairly understandable that the priority is catching fires early. To this end, the vigiles kept regular night patrols and enforced fire safety regulations.

Yes, the Romans had fire safety regulations. The primary ones seem to have been ensuring your fire is not being kept negligently, and to keep supplies of water upstairs. There may have been other regulations around maintaining other fire fighting equipment on the premises. These men were not to be trifled with. If you were found to be negligent in your duty, the vigiles had the authority to beat you. This is something I’m sure all fire fighters will have wished for at some stage.

Whilst there were several disastrous fires under the watch of the vigiles (they operated under Nero, for example) Rome seemed to have suffered fewer fires than other major ancient cities, and the fact they were maintained for over four-hundred years is likely good evidence of their effectiveness. Score one, publicly funded services.

Nevertheless, proving the need for this blog, no one seems to have learned from this experience. There was no formal fire fighting service in London prior to the Great Fire. So after 1666, what form of fire fighting service was introduced? Private fire insurance companies, of course. I suppose this is so that instead of one large, publicly funded, inefficient mistake from the past, they could all have a series of smaller, efficiently allocated, private mistakes.

Academic Sources

Dickson, PGM 1960, The Sun Insurance Office, 1710-1960: the history of two and a half centuries of British insurance, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Plutarch 1st century AD, “The Life of Crassus”, Parallel Lives, sourced from: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Crassus*.html, accessed 4 January 2016.

Rainbird, JS 1976, , doctoral thesis, Durham University, sourced from: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7455/, accessed 4 January 2016.

Robinson, OF 2003, Ancient Rome: city planning and administration, Routeledge, London.

Wilson, C & Wilson, D 2015, An end to murder: humans beings have always been cruel, savage and murderous. Is that all about to change?, Hachette, London.