| 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. Don's book, The Blackened Shield, was a moving, anecdotal chronicle of those years and became one of the most popular books about the fire service ever published.
Fire Duty, Don Whitney's new book, contains the same on-the-job realism, the same felt action of the fireground, and the same wonderful, outrageous humor readers discovered throughout 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.
Don Whitney still has a bagful of great stories about firefighters, and he's put some more of them in Fire Duty.
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