If Clint Eastwood ever made Battalion Chief, he would remind of you Al Kraweic. A no-nonsense man of few words, he made all of them count.
January 18, 2017 TT: Let's go back to the very beginning. How old were you? And what year did you get on? AK: I got on in '82, and I was born in 1948, so you do the math (34 years). I had no expectation of getting on this job. The list that I was on was like four years old, it was surprising they were even maintaining a list. TT: Were you born in the city? AK: I was born in Pawtucket but I lived in an apartment until my girl bought a house in Attleboro and I've kind of flipped back and forth. TT: What did you do before you got here? AK: I was working as an iron worker. I did a lot of things, mostly construction. The economy back then was like now, it had its ups and downs, and construction was always the first to be hit when things got bad. At the time I was an iron worker in Connecticut. TT: Were you in the union? AK: No I was working on permit. TT: Were you a welder? AK: No I was doing decking. A little bit of connection but not much. Some repair work on bridges but at the time I was doing decking on a big insurance building they were building near Hartford. I got a phone call at work--Ray Church--I didn't even know a Ray Church. He says, "if you want to get on the fire department be here tomorrow." So I had to leave. Fortunately I had a car. Because usually I would ride in with my brother, because I was working with my brother and another guy. For whatever reason, that time I had a car, so I said, "I'm getting out of here." And my brother said he'd catch a ride with somebody else. At the time I was making, I was doing quite well, taking home about a grand a week. Back then that was damn good money. Coming to a job that, uh, that's what is was paying almost for a month. When I first got on. But it was steady. The job I had I had no idea--I could've been pink slipped the next week, the next day-- TT: Especially without the union, right? AK: Yeah. And I knew a lot of guys that were out of work at the time. Me working was--my brother even said don't volunteer your work on permit--so anyway I got on the job and I went for the physical and ran into Richie McDowell and Bobby McGeehan, they were getting their physicals, and we all got on the same day. When we got on we didn't have a school, it was OJT. TT: Right on the job. AK: The only training we had was you had to get an EMT license, I already had that. I was going to school with a bunch of guys who were already on the job. But other than that we had no training. Back in '82, that doesn't seem like that long ago to me, but everyone didn't have Scotts. Some trucks only had one Scott. Some trucks had a Scott and a Rescue Pack. Most trucks had at least two. The ladder trucks didn't always have Scotts. I remember my first fire I went in, I had a rescue pack, which was a small Scott bottle which lasted not even fifteen minutes. And if--all it was for was to go in and rescue somebody and get out. You weren't supposed to stay and fight fires with it. You know how a Scott is, when you're at a fire it's supposed to last over half an hour, but some guys can't even get fifteen minutes out of them. (Laughs) TT: Sucking wind. AK: Well, they're excited, so I don't know how long I was in--it was my first fire--and to tell you the truth I got lost (laughs). Fire was in the cellar, I was bouncing around on the first floor, not realizing at the time that fires aren't like what you see in the movies or on TV. You don't see anything. TT: It's all smoke. AK: I couldn't my hand in front of my face. So when I came out I was like, "That was interesting." (laughs). It was my first experience. At least when you went to school you got the experience of being in a smoke-filled room and not being able to see, moving around. That was my first house--and it was a pissy ass couch fire in the cellar-- TT: Now the cellar fires are, I mean Thurber was talking about almost getting killed twice in cellars-- AL: Well, usually there's only one way in or out. As you know, cellars are full of shit. TT: We had one last night in the 5s. Um, so that was your first fire? AK: That was my first--it wasn't really a fire--I wouldn't even classify it as a house fire. My first one after that was in the 5s district, on Acorn Street, which's one of the shortest streets in the city. And it was another cellar fire. That was my first fire with Timmy Hayes who I found out could suck smoke like--he didn't need a Scott. I don't know how he did it TT: Chickee talks about the sponges... AK: Oh yeah. Well, I never did that. But following Timmy Hayes into a fire my eyes would be watering and burning and he'd be standing up telling you what to do and I could barely do anything. I was just gagging. And that was another small little fire, but it was the first that I worked with someone like Timmy, you know, that didn't even use a Scott. TT: What happened when he retired? The guys that ate all the smoke, no one worried about this stuff back then, right? AK: Timmy's still alive. I saw him at the last big function at the Le Foyer. He was there. He showed up. I was surprised, to tell you the truth, I didn't think he'd--he smoked cigarettes plus he ate all that smoke, you know. TT: And there was a lot more fire back in the day then there is now. AK: Timmy was--I think everybody you would talk to would say he was one of the best, if not the best firefighter they ever worked with, he was really an old school firefighter and wearing a Scott--I mean he wore a Scott at the end because everyone had to. The old timers, they wouldn't even go in because they just didn't like putting a Scott on. And it's understandable because some guys just don't like something on their face. When they first got on they didn't have to do that. A lot of it was surround and drown before they had Scotts. If you couldn't put it out right away, you stood outside and put it out. TT: So Timmy Hayes, when you got on, how far into his career was he? Like when did he retire? AK: Well, he was still on when I first made lieutenant after nine years. My eighth or ninth year I made lieutenant and went to the 1s and he was the senior lieutenant on the 1s. They didn't have captains back then. So I would think he made it another ten years, probably 2000 when he retired. TT: The 4th of July stories are unbelievable, as far as the sheer number of fires. Lighting up neighborhoods... AK: If you were on the 1s you were up all night. That was it. Nothing would happen until after the fireworks at the baseball game (McCoy Stadium), and that's like ten o'clock. From ten o'clock on you were going til four or five in the morning. Warren Ave was a big one. I don't know where they got the shit to burn but they kept finding more stuff to burn and they'd keep lighting fire after fire. TT: It just seems so incredible because you hear these stories and you're like, "Nobody stopped this?" It went on for like fifty or sixty years. AK: Oh yeah. I would write down...all I did as an officer on the fourth of July was write down where we were going to next. You ran with four or five guys to a truck. Everyone ran heavy, and all I did was write down go to Warren Ave, go to Anthony Street (laughs), that's all you did and you'd just keep a list and the only time you'd over ride it is if it was a reported house fire. Or a bonfire next to a house. You'd say, "Okay." And you'd go there first. TT: So you'd have a list of fires that you were trying to get to but couldn't even get to sometimes. AK: And every now and then someone--like the 4s might be in the 1s district and say, "Well, we're near Anthony, we'll take that one next." And you'd cross it off your list (laughs). TT: How did they--you'd just hit a hydrant, load up, and head to the next fire? AK: You'd put out fires and when you got low on water you go out of service to refill. My first fourth of July I was on the ladder. And the old guys said, "Oh you're on the ladder. You won't go nowhere tonight." We ended up with two house fires and a bakery on Smithfield avenue burned down. A vacant house, another house, and a bakery-they lost a business block on Smithfield ave. TT: Was this Burn the Block Brindamour? AK: No that was after. (Laughs) TT: So this is all on the fourth of July, you're just going house to house or whatever they're lighting up, sometimes piles in the middle of the street. AK: They actually would collect it and store it behind their houses. And wait for the fourth to burn it all. TT: Would they go through to the next night or was it just the fourth? AK: It would carry over but it wasn't anything--usually if it carried over it was only in the 1s district. It wasn't in the other districts as much. And my father grew up in the 1s, and he even asked me, "They still doing the bonfires?" And I said, "Yeah." At the time there was a trolly track that ran down Main Street, and he said, "We used to pour gasoline down the trolly tracks down that hill and light it on fire, and it'd be a wall of fire." (Laughs) TT: These stories are so great. No one would ever believe it. So it went for like 60 years? AK: Oh it went on for a good long time until they finally decided they were going to have a night court, and just bring people in. They were arresting people and bringing them in to court right then and charging them. The day before, trucks would go around--we would go around before the fourth of July looking for piles of trash. TT: To try to preempt it? AK: Yup. and call the department of public works and they'd come in and take the trash away. But it did work, because in about two years it quieted everything down. TT: Wow, that's amazing. That was after 2000? AK: Yes. I was still in the 1s. And we were going back to the same address for like the fifth time. And the same guys were standing out there drinking their beer and chuckling and laughing and we're putting it out. The last time we went, the cops came and took them all away in handcuffs. That was the end of that. And I even said it then, "It was funny the first few times but it ain't funny anymore." TT: Let's talk about bad stories. What's the closest you ever came to being killed? AK: One, I was on Branch Avenue. Looking back on it it doesn't seem so bad, but at the time it was because I was on the ladder, and me and John Nolan went up search and rescue because as usual you get there and someone yells, "Someone's on the second floor!" You couldn't see your hand in front of your face. And we're bumping into stuff on the second floor. We went through the whole apartment, we both came out, we started going down the stairs, and as we started going down the stairs, it was getting hotter and hotter and hotter and I says, "John, are you getting hot?" And he says, "Yeah." I says, "Let's go back up." And fortunately there was a window to an upstairs porch off the hallway. So we could get out. It was the only time I threw my helmet. Back then, they used to tell you to throw your helmet out the window to get attention. And they got us down from the second floor. And that was a funny--not funny--a strange fire in that we had like mutual aid from Lonsdale there, and they got there later on in the fire, and they pull up and we were all standing out front and one of them says, "Ain't you guys going in?" Someone said, "Go take a walk around the back." Well, the whole house was gone. It was like a Hollywood movie set. Just the front of the house was standing. (laughs) We went in and there was fire in every wall. Every time you poked a hole in a wall there was fire. Balloon construction, the fire started in the basement, it went up every interior wall. TT: It ate the house. AK: Completely TT: That's the one thing, especially here, Central Falls, New Bedford, Fall River, places with triple and quadruple decker houses build 150 years ago, it's the same story, right? You just try to get there quick and smash a wall and stop it from getting to the roof. So the radios don't really come into play until after Hargraves, like the mid 1990's. Did you ever have a mayday? AK: We had Domkowski's. Over by the hospital. I forget which street it was. And that was in the basement. Fire started in the basement, went up through an inside wall, upstairs, the whole house was pretty--as I recall you couldn't see anywhere in the halls. They were on the first floor, I was in the basement with John Leite, and we're all talking and all of a sudden I heard a mayday and shushed everybody up. "Quiet! Quiet!" And they call us all out and fortunately, Biely, a very good firefighter, while chief Jack was trying to get everyone together, it was gonna be me and Halprin going in to look for him, Biely took it upon himself to go in because he knew the last place he was with him, and he walked in and got him out. He was in a closet. (laughs) TT: I heard that. Was he out of air? AK: He was close. I think you could hear the alarm going off in his mayday. But he just got disoriented, got himself into a closet, I don't know if the door shut behind him, or he just got scared and turned around and you can't see... TT: That's got to be terrifying. When you became chief, as you step up in your career, and advance up the chain, you were confident enough in what you knew, but did you ever sometimes sit back and go, "I got thirty-three guys I gotta worry about." And on top of that, you have the whole city to worry about. It's not like--it's two in the morning, there's nobody there but you, did you ever have those moments where you were like, "Wow, This is a big deal." AK: It gets to um, a point...at first it's put the fire out. But you also, when you get to Battalion Chief, you realize I have to put the fire out but I have to make sure everybody comes back. You know? You don't want to put anybody in harm's way ... so you start to realize who's assessment of the situation you can trust and whose you can't. There were times when I asked the officers inside, "Well, how we looking? Does it look like we can put it out or...?" And some guys, because of the way they are, their assessment was we should just come out and surround and drown. Well, I don't want to stay here all night either, you know? The longer we're here the greater the chance someone's gonna get hurt. I think, after a while, you get to a point where you know who you can trust for an assessment, and when you pull guys out or put guys in. I think Chief McLaughlin now, he's good at assessing fires. TT: Strategically AK: Good tactics, good at assessing a fire...every now and then some guys just have another sense as far as fires. He was one of them. He was good at it. He was one of those guys, and I've heard him say this too, chief would be pulling guys out and he'd be like, "Hey do you want to put this thing out or watch it burn down?" And that's what it comes down to. I was always of the perspective of Let's get there, put it out, pick up and get out of here. Basically, I don't like working anymore than I have to. But sometimes you don't have a choice. When Morris Novelty burned down I was in charge. And I had guys that wanted to go in and I said no. I had been in that building before, it's too easy to get lost, and I knew there were escalators that went up through the building from the basement to the top that had open floors and things were cooking already. And I says, "No, we ain't going in." TT: That was the fire where an off duty Providence guy drove by and called up saying, "I think this building was on fire." I remember because I dispatched the whole thing. I was pissed off for days. And by the time you guys got there it was ripping. AK: Oh yeah, it was puffing out of everywhere. Dave Reed was on the ladder. Everything he opened up near the roof was just blowing out. Gary Gould wanted to go in and I was like no. This wasn't that long after that Worcester warehouse fire either, and I'm not losing guys over a vacant building. I'd rather sit here and pour water on it. TT: At that time it was a storage place, right? There' wasn't-- AK: There wasn't any business running in there. It was just storage for the old novelty stuff. A vacant building TT: So as Chief, talking about responsibilities, you do see it on the fireground, as far as how the chiefs will turn to certain guys, you're talking about assessment, but also to send them in to do certain tasks because they know it will get done. If you're gonna send somebody to do something, even if it's dangerous, you still know that guy is gonna get it done. Like you said before, there are some guys that're ultra aggressive and there're some guys who're like, "Yeah, I'm all set with that. I'm gonna take care of shit out here." As far as aggressive dudes, does anyone else come to mind? AK: Bobby Ogle was very good aggressive firefighter. We had a big, i would call it a mansion. It was a huge house over in the Oak Hill neighborhood, on Charles near where the Children's Museum used to be? (laughs) Well, there was house over there, it had three stories, it had a huge walk in to a huge central stairway area. And that was another house, we got there, Code Red, I came in with Ogle, we laid a line from Engine 1, we went in. We walked into the stairway area and there wasn't a lick of smoke in the whole building. None. But it was going in all the inside walls, everything was burning, every place we opened. Ceiling, walls, there was fire going everywhere inside the walls. And finally it opened up and started burning heavy and I was up on the second--no the third floor. Me and Ogle were up on the third floor, we were going into a bedroom, kicked open the door, the bedroom was hot as heck, and Bobby pulled me out of there. He says, "Don't go in there." I says, "Why?" He says, "The fire's going--" Anyway, he pulls me out and we opened the door and went back in, and it couldn't have been more than five minutes later, we went back in and the roof and ceiling fell into that room--you could see the stars. (laughs) I don't know how he knew it, but he pulled me out. And I wanted to go in. He was good. He was another guy that was good at assessing and had an instinct. He knew where to go and where not to go. He was good at that. TT: When you were outside calling the shots as BC, I guess you're right. You're looking at it and asking, "Hey, can we put this out or not?" You're not gonna put guys into situations just to get this job done. You're looking to make strategic choices on which way you attack a fire, like would you watch the smoke or the color of the smoke and--I've heard different things about smoke. Colors, one color means it's being put down, but as the color turns more aggressive it's like, "Uh-oh, we might be losing this thing." AK: Before I was Battalion Chief, we had a fire, I was on Engine 2 at the time. It was me, Boislcaire, and I think Chief Sisson at the time was on Engine 2. It was a hot, hot summer day. Had to be upper nineties, maybe low triple digits. I just remember it being very hot. It was over by Pine street. We were going up the stairs and I was with Bober, that's right, Bober was on overtime, Boisclaire was pumping. Bober and I were going up to the second floor and as we're going up you can see smoke puffing out of cracks in the walls, in the door frames. I think McGeehan was behind me, and maybe Billy Malloy, I think he was on Engine 3 at the time. We knocked open the door, as soon as we knocked open that door the whole room was orange/black. Which is...the smoke is burning. (Laughs) As soon as we opened it my ears started burning. All I had was my flaps down, I didn't have my Nomex hood on, My flaps are down--I didn't wear the fire gloves because you couldn't do anything. TT: Yeah, they're like wearing pillows. AK: My hands are burning. (Laughs) I turned on the hose just to wet my hands down. Looking for a window so we could--as far as I knew the fire had already vented itself but it was still that hot in there. Looking for a window so we could get the heat out of the place. That was a color of smoke I've always remembered. (Laughs) When it's just black/orange/black, you can't see anything, yeah the smoke itself was burning. TT: Did you ever have a flashover on your watch? AK: I probably did but it wasn't like someone would've seen on television or in the movies, as far as a large explosion. Probably one that did flashover before we got there was a mill on Conant Street. When we got there all the windows on the top floor were blown out and there was fire coming out of everywhere. I'm assuming that flashed over because it blew everything up. TT: Were you at Greenhalgh Mill? AK: No. My shift was working but I was home. I had my hip replaced (Kraweic was always known for his top physical conditioning. A distance road cyclist, there are many stories that showcase his stamina at a fire. One lieutenant remembered a large fire in a field they could not reach because of a high fence. Kraweic, a captain at the time with twenty-something years on the job, appeared, pointed over the fence, and said, "We need to get over there." When the lieutenant turned back, Kraweic, in full turn-out gear and with a forty pound SCBA on his back, was already standing on the other side motioning for them to hand the hose over the fence. The lieutenant, to this day, swears he has no idea how this occurred). It was a strange story. I was watching cable news, flipping through the channels, I hear the cable news say, "Multiple Alarm fire on Cottage Street." And this was CNN. "Cottage street?" I thought to myself, "We have one in Pawtucket..." (laughs). So I kept watching and sure enough Greenhalgh Mills was going (a 250,000 square foot mill caught fire on a windy Friday afternoon and took out half a neighborhood and 17 houses. A State of Emergency was issued. Hundreds of firemen from nearly every town in RI, plus much of Massachusetts, responded and, upon arrival, were famously told by the Assistant Chief, "Pick a house fire and put it out.") So I walked out onto my deck--I only live maybe three miles away as the crow flies--I couldn't see a lick of smoke. The wind was blowing forty to fifty knots, and all the smoke was blowing toward Seekonk. It wouldn't even go high enough, it was blowing so hard. I remember Frank Chassis said, "It was snowing fire embers. He was right over here, by the fence on Kenyon, he said, "We're just sitting there watching these fire embers blow by us." They were trying to set up a water screen because (the embers) were catching hoses on fire. Because they'd be landing on roofs and even travelling to other cities. Lemay worked that day. He could probably tell you more. TT: Thurber too. He told a funny story about how they were getting their asses kicked and working their balls off for hours. And when he finally had a second to drop his pack and take a break and have a smoke, he thought they were making great progress until he turned around and saw half the city on fire. (laughs) AK: Mutual Aid was coming and they'd just tell them, "Find a fire and put it out." There were house fires everywhere. And there was probably a lot more that they caught and put out before they went up.
1 Comment
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorTom Trabulsi was born in the Midwest, attended high school in Rhode Island, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in American History. He was a bike courier in Boston and New York City, worked construction in the mountain west and east coast, and is currently a firefighter in a northeast city. Archives
August 2022
Categories |