GENERAL ALARM: A DRAMATIC ACCOUNT OF FIRES AND FIRE-FIGHTING IN AMERICA.

By Charles F. Haywood '25. New York: Dodd, Mead &Co., 1967. 297 pp. $6.95.

This book by a renowned "fire buff" is basically the history of fire-fighting from the days of gunpowder as a suppression tool to the modern super-pumpers and chemical attacks. The 288 pages of text provide a history entertaining and educational for the average reader, nostalgic for the fire historian, and challenging to a technician whether fireman, mayor, or fire insurance agent.

The pictures alone are worth the price of the book: among them, a 1733 fire engine with power supplied by a foot treadle; a metropolitan steam fire engine with an American La France tractor; a ladder truck with a three-horse team, an 80-foot aerial ladder, and a tiller man to steer the rear wheels around corners; a chief's racy two- seater buggy with four large wheels and a spirited horse; and a Boston steamer drawn by five horses needed to get through drifts in a severe snow storm.

One of the most fascinating chapters concerns Western forest fires, which Easterners can envisage only with difficulty. A big Western fire may have a perimeter of 50 to 100 miles and involve 20,000 to 50,000 acres. In 1960 no fewer than 25,000 men were fighting fire at one time, and in 1961 nearly as many at ten major fires.

In today's environment of civil unrest and potential "fire storms," Mr. Haywood's narrative about past major disasters, well developed, offers a challenge for thought by a reader whether his own town, city, or property is adequately protected. Even Dartmouth students of 1925 are limelighted through reference to a major fire problem in White River Junction in that year. The Junction House, a large old wooden railroad hotel, burned to the ground, but Vermont resourcefulness saved the town by chopping a hole in the frozen White River to get water for the pumps and by using the wells round about, all pumped dry in a sensationally close call.

Though not a technical publication, this book provides a valuable lesson in the problems that confront contemporary fire service, and hence is important to civic-minded taxpayers.

Since 1938 with the Hanover Fire Department, which has reciprocal relations withthe DOC, Mr. Rand, DOC Executive Director, is drawn into an even wider range of activity by being Special Deputy for NewHampshire on call for fires anywhere.