Chief Joseph Burns. December 12, 2018
In 1957, hula-hoops and Slinky’s were the most popular toys, “Twelve Angry Men” was playing in the theaters, the Russians launched Sputnik 1, and Joe Burns got sworn in as a member of the Pawtucket Fire Department. Recently, we sat down in his Attleboro home twenty-six years after his retirement. This is what he said … TT- What year are we talking about? JB- 1957. TT- When did you retire? JB- ’93. Well, I was forced out, so I got thirty-seven years out of it. TT- Thirty-seven years. That’s incredible. JB- The best part was—you know my two sons, Bruce and Bob, they both did like thirty-two, thirty-three years. So I was just telling you that story. We were going down Sayles Avenue, one of my first runs, and I’m holding onto the back. You know how fast we were going? A kid on a bicycle said, “Where’s the fire?” He was keeping up with us. TT- That’s how slow you were going? JB- A kid on a bicycle could keep up with the fire truck. We had that for truck for a year. It was garbage. See this truck here? (Shows me a picture.) They bought it in ’38 and stuffed into Roosevelt Avenue (Station 2) for ten years. Never used it. Didn’t have the manpower or whatever. That was called, in them days, a super-pumper. TT- When you got on in ’57, did you have a fire academy or did you just come on? JB- Here’s what happened. We were leftover from the school in July. There was seven of us leftover. So what they did was pay us fifty bucks a week to come in and train on the job. We never went to fires. So for a month we sat around, training, we went over to the stadium to put a ladder up, no fire academy. The five that I came on with, four of them are dead. Ever hear of Chief Doire? TT- Yes. JB- He’s still alive. Somewhere. TT- Who else did you come on with? Boisclair? JB- Boisclair was six months before. He and I are just about the same age. There’s guys older, but I don’t know where the hell they’re at. I think I’m the oldest active guy. We have a meeting once a month, the retirees, and as far as I can see, I’m the old man. TT- When you got on in ’57, how old were you? JB- I was twenty-seven. Now, I’m eighty-seven. TT- What did you do before you got on? JB- I had the worst job in the world. I undercoated cars, and greased cars. There was a dealership, Plymouth dealership down in Pawtucket. And my brother-in-law worked there and he got me in. Ninety-cents an hour. TT- Ninety cents an hour, holy jeepers creepers. JB- But, apparently I was a good worker because I nickled the owner to death, got him up to a $1.50 an hour (laughs). And that was what the head mechanic was getting. A $1.50. But nobody knew what each other made. TT- When you got on the fire department, how much were making? JB- $67 a week. In 1955, they were getting $50 a week and working eighty-four hours. TT- Dear God. Did you just say eighty-four hours a week? JB- Yup. TT- For $50? That’s like getting sixty cents an hour. JB- And then they went from the two-platoon system, to three platoons in 1955. TT- Wow. JB- So they added a lot of guys. TT-So in 1955 they went to three platoons-- JB- When I got on in ’57, they went to $67. We had a three-year contract. A dollar a year. It took us three years to hit $70. (laughs) TT- How many guys were on the job? JB- 143. TT- That was in ’57? JB- Yes. Now, it’s 153. No overtime for you guys, right? TT- Nope. We are fully staffed 24/7 until this grant runs out. We have a federal grant that basically keeps us fully staffed for three years. JB- Before you came on, Bruce said two guys at the 5’s lost their houses because they used the overtime to pay their mortgage. TT- The guys that live on overtime when overtime is around are making bad decisions. JB- My goal, when I came on the job, Fire Alarm was civilian. They worked forty hours, we worked fifty-six. My goal was to get 20 years on here and then go into Fire Alarm as a second career. With both jobs combined, I would be basically making what the chief makes. But it never worked out, because I became the chief. (laughs.) TT- Now in ’57, the three platoons-- JB- The hours changed. It was three day-shifts, three night-shifts, three days off. Before that, they worked the 84-hour schedule, which basically gave them one day off a week. It was crazy. But the three three and three didn’t allow for overtime either. I remember one of my first Thanksgivings, we worked with thirteen guys. TT- Did you say thirteen? JB- Thirteen. We had an hour and a half to go home for lunch. It was staggered. But the guys that went home for lunch at 2:30 didn’t have to come back, because by then it would be four o’clock. Six trucks with two men apiece and a captain running the show. TT- So obviously, this is before the inception of minimum-manning. JB- That was in 1972. That’s when we went to 31 men, and increased to four platoons. Now the rest of your life, it should stay like that. Some cities are trying to get it back to 56-hour weeks, North Kingstown, East Greenwich… What’s the pay now a week? TT- Around $1000 now. JB- Mine was $67 a week. And I think the Chief made $150 a week. The union got stronger and stronger, and we kept pecking away. Cranston had the best contract in America. Everybody used Cranston in their own negotiations. Five dollars here, five dollars there, we were always trying to better things. When I retired, my pension was $34,000. My salary was $56,000. Today, the chief gets $88,000. So in 25 years it went from $56,000 to $88,000. TT- Wow. Now who was the chief when you got on? JB- Connolly. He had a driver, and one guy in Fire Alarm. One guy ran the whole thing. Barbara (Pacheco) wasn’t there yet, so we had a male secretary upstairs. Barbara’s been there for like 35 years. When I became Chief, I said to Barbara, “I’m swearing you in as Assistant Chief.” (Laughs) But seriously, if I was mayor, I’d make her the Chief. She knows this job back and forth. She saved my ass so many times. TT- Now-- JB- Not to interrupt, but we had a picket line in 1980. The reason we had this picket line was because they took Ladder 3 out of service, and they had a lieutenant’s test that we wanted changed. In order to take the lieutenant’s test you had to run a mile. One mile. And this guy Ron Sweeny ran the mile and a few days later he died of a heart attack. So the union said, “No more running, this is nuts.” Because we were already fighting with the city over the closing of Ladder 3, and this just tipped us over the edge. I was on Ladder 3 and I loved it. You know why? We went to every fire. We went with Ladder 1 on the West side, Ladder 2 on the East. McCoy Station 3 was built in 1957, the same year I got on the job. That’s where it was. We had one Scott pack in the whole city, it was on the rescue-- TT- So no airpacks for anybody, right? JB- One Scott. The Elks Club bought it for us (laughs). In those days they cost $1200. A couple years later the union made the city buy two more. So each Ladder company now had a Scott. I fell in love with the Scott because I don’t like smoke. The engine company would take the line to the door, and I was like a doctor—I’d put on my Scott and they would hand me their hose line and I went in. I told them, “If I get into trouble, I’m at the end of this hose-line.” I loved it. I got more experience, because the engine company could only go in so far without air. I also smashed out the whole window. Some guys only took out a pane or two, but I took out the whole thing, because back then it was usually a mattress fire from the cigarettes. Everybody smoked. So I would fold up the mattress and smush it through the window. TT- So the cigarettes-- JB- Burnt down everything. We had a lot of fires in Prospect Heights back then. There were no smoke detectors or anything back then, and everything burned. TT- Let’s circle back to the picket line-- JB- Six or seven guys crossed it. Back then, the fire department was very tight. 140 against seven or eight guys. The job was together, but the other seven were not. The four Battalion Chiefs crossed the line. The day they crossed the picket line, there was $25 spread between what the BCs made and what the lieutenants made. And we kept that for ten years. For ten years, we kept that rate (as punishment to the BCs for crossing the picket line.) Even now they are the lowest paid BCs in the whole state. After they crossed the line the union said, “Enough of this.” A lieutenant was making $50 a week more than a private. Now they make over $130 more than a private. But not the BCs. Their differential is peanuts. The union became stronger, too. TT- Now, in ’57, what was your uniform like? JB- Tan khakis. To go to the fire station we had to wear our dress blues. TT- Full dress blues and then change at work? JB- Yes. And plenty of guys had to respond to fires in their dress blues, because if you didn’t change quickly, you could be going out the door. And back then, those dress jackets were heavy. TT- I heard guys had to cross kids at the corner like crossing guards. JB- Yes. It was part of our job. The junior guys would cross the kids, and if the truck caught a run, they would stop and you just jumped on it and went. But that was back in the day. TT- So when you got on you were being trained by the World War II guys, right? That was pretty old school. JB- It sure was. They had different ideas. A younger generation took over. The reason why most of those guys didn’t retire is because they worked 84 hours and never had a part time job. They stayed on until age 65. We had a lieutenant at the 3’s, Lt. Tomilini. They had to throw him out at midnight the day he turned 65. There’s only one guy in history that worked over 65. Chief Monast. You know why? In 1972, we went to a new pension. The old pension was 20 years for 50% of your pay. They changed it 25 years for 60% of your pay. So nobody could get off for five years. Chief Monast was 65, so they kept him until he was 70. Five years. His driver was a private, Farrel Tuit. He had more power, Tuit did, he ran the job. TT- I’ve heard of this guy. Stretch was his nickname, right? JB- I was down on West Avenue Station 1. That was the dump company. TT- What does that mean? JB- My first year on the job, we went to the dump at 5:30 at night, New Year’s Eve, until 8:30 in the morning. And during the night my son Bruce was born. He was a New Year’s baby, and I didn’t know anything about it until I got back to the station that morning. I picked up the phone and they said, “You have a son.” We had no radios back then. No nothing. My nephew upstairs took my wife to the hospital. TT- But what is a dump company? JB- Well, Esten Avenue. That was the old city dump. They were tearing down houses and businesses and throwing them into the dump-- TT- Oh, is this when they built Interstate 95 through Pawtucket? JB- Yes. In the 1950s they were continuing it from Connecticut to Maine. We had fires every single night. Our feeder line from the hydrant used to be a 2½-inch hose. (now it’s 4-inch.) So I worked for this Italian guy, Eddy Zanfrello. He was a private. On each platoon we had three lieutenants and five privates in charge. This guy comes down and yells out the window, “You stupid bastards!” And Eddy said, “What’d he say?” He chased that guy down. Anyway, we were stationed at the dump because they used to light all these destroyed houses on fire. And we’d have to go down and put it out. The next day they would dump more houses and we would have to go down there again. Every night. I used to hate it. So when I found out someone was out sick at the 3s, I went there. TT- Let’s circle back. The guys who crossed the picket line did it to get promoted to lieutenant, right? The city said, “Whoever crosses we will make an officer,” and they took the bait. JB- Basically. Individually, I took each Battalion Chief into a room and asked them why they crossed the picket line. Their answer was, they crossed because one crossed first and they didn’t want him to be the only one who crossed. That was total bullshit. I asked all four of them the same thing and they all blamed each other for crossing first. In the long run, in 1986, I finally made B.C. In 1981, it was between Chief Doire and myself. Politically, it was tricky. He got it over me because I was told I couldn’t be controlled. The only person who could control me, my wife, she passed away last year. Other than that, I couldn’t be controlled. TT- So when did you become chief? JB- 1993. I was Chief for six weeks. (Mayor) Brian Sauralt got arrested in 1992. Frank Boisclair was chief. Chief Boisclair bailed out. One day, I was the Battalion Chief, I came in and by noon I was Assistant Chief, and by four o’clock I was Chief. (laughs). Barbara said to me, “Chief Boisclair ain’t coming back. What’re you gonna do?” I had balls. I went over to see the Safety Director. They didn’t want anymore politics on the job. They said they were going to have an outside test to hire the next chief. No oral board, no nothing. So I went home and told the wife I was gonna leave. They were giving a chief’s test for an outsider. She says to me, “You’re taking that test.” “No, I ain’t.” “Yes, you are.” I knew they didn’t want me. She made me take it. So it was the easiest test I ever took. You know why? Because I knew I wasn’t going to get it (laughs.) I didn’t give a shit, so there was no pressure. Guess what? I killed it. I came out number one. This was in September. Usually in fifteen days they have the results. Well, they kept the results until December, because they were hoping I would retire or drop dead. I was first, City Hall wanted the fourth guy. In those days, they could pick one in the top three, meaning number three could be picked before number one. Number four was Forcier. They wanted him. We had a Chief, Chief Gallant. I went down to his house. I said, “Chief, I heard I was number one.” I found this out only because they made a new police chief, and I was at a party later that day in Central Falls. The guy knew the Director of Personnel in Pawtucket, that’s how I found out. TT- So you-- JB- So I went to Gallant’s house and said, “What do I do now?” He said, “You got balls?” I said, “Test me.” He said, “Go down and tell the mayor, that when he’s ready, I’m out the door. Make me chief, and the minute you want me out I’m gone.” So I did. I went down there and said, “Mr. Mayor, I don’t know where I finished on the list—” which was bullshit because there were only four people who took that test. So as I’m talking to the mayor, he’s just staring out the window. He couldn’t have cared less. But they had to make me. Without the Oral Board, there was only the written test to go by, and I was number one. They could’ve given it to the second or third guy, but the second guy Renzi had just gotten divorced. He couldn’t take it. The third guy, Mike Carter, he didn’t want it. They had to make me if they wanted to give it to Forcier. Boisclair was running out of time and they had to make somebody. As you know, there are time constraints on vacancies by contract, so it was 4:30 on the last day. I was sitting in the office when this girl Kathy says, “Joe, you got any balls?” I said yeah. She said, “Go next door and tell them what’s he gonna do? Shit or get off the pot?” He only had a half hour left to make the new Chief or the union was gonna file a grievance. So I went over there and Mayor Mativia says, “Well, I guess I have to make you.” Talk about feeling welcomed, right? So I finally made chief. I let the job run itself. With Barbara’s help, of course. My only worry as BC or Chief was that if ten guys went into the house, I wanted ten to come out. I don’t care if the house burns down. I just wanted my men to go home to their families. In fact, somebody did die, but that was six months after I retired. TT- John Hargreaves. JB- Yup. He died in McBurney’s cellar. TT- So you were chief for six weeks-- JB- This guy Noonan became Safety Director. He called me over and said, “Sit there.” The chair was in the middle of the floor. I thought he was gonna hit me. He says, “Congratulations. You’ve done a great job. But we want you out.” “Out when?” He says, “Yesterday wouldn’t have been fast enough.” TT- So they wanted you out to make Forcier? JB- Yes. And I also wouldn’t go along with this overtime thing they had going on. So I’m sitting there saying, “They got the wrong guy.” I ended up in the hospital for ten days and sat around for a year and got chief’s pay. TT- So you were chief for six weeks and then went out sick? JB- Yes. I wouldn’t play ball. TT- Let’s circle back. So when they were building I-95, they were tearing down a lot of the city, right? JB- We had a 100 fires from that. Three-deckers, four-deckers, sometimes two a night. They were lighting everything on fire. Talk about experience. We were great firemen back then. When you get on the job, you wanted to go into fires. You didn’t want to sit around the station. I liked fires. I hated watching the dump because it was gross. And I was also afraid of rats. We were down in the dump so much I had a stick to chase away the rats. It stunk, literally. TT- Were you working when Star Gas exploded in ’82? JB- I was not only working, but here—(shows me a picture) This is Bob, my son, and me. If that (railcar) had blown up, Bobby would’ve been killed. We managed to keep the fire away from that massive tank. I was a BC back then. Around 1980, we had a run at 9 o’clock at night on Beverage Hill Avenue. There was a cement place there. We went in there, it didn’t look like much, but right after we left 80 tons of concrete collapsed. We had just left. The roof was on fire and we didn’t know it. We saw a little smoke and had gone back to the truck to get a hose and the whole thing collapsed. Am I lucky or what? TT- You ain’t kidding. JB- I had three chances at dying on the job. Star Gas, the concrete place, and downtown in the Kennedy building, we went in there. I was on Ladder 3. We took a line inside. The hydrant was dead. We pulled the line and Chief Banning goes, “Lay a feeder from the top of the hill.” So we did. We didn’t know it, but below us were three buried gas tanks that heated the building. The cement was a foot thick. Well, the pipes blew up, and the explosion was so big it cracked the floors. It cracked them. Those were my three chances at dying. TT- Let’s talk about your career. You got on in ’57, spent three years on Engine 1, and then went to Ladder 3? JB- Yes. For 11 years. Then I made lieutenant and went to Engine 6. I didn’t like it. The 6s is boring. I spent two years there. I liked working at Station 3 because it was active. Something was always going on. There was the engine and ladder and the baseball stadium was packed, I liked that. But at the 6s it was three guys. I got so lonely I used to invite the female crossing guard in for coffee just to have someone to talk to. (laughs) We had Lt. Farrel. By now he was in Fire Prevention. He used to come by every morning for a coffee. So he’s coming in one morning and the race track comes in for an alarm (Narragansett Race Track was a national horse racing track before it burnt down.) So he goes out, stops the traffic without knowing we had been cancelled from the run, and we left him out there with like 500 cars around him. He was pissed. TT- So after the 6s where did you go? JB- We had no captains back then. So when a lieutenant off Ladder 2 retired, I went there. I liked that. Engine 4, Ladder 2 and Rescue 2 were there and I liked it. Always something going on. I stayed there for ten more years until I made BC. It took me 30 years to make BC. I was BC for five years and then I became Acting Chief. Altogether I spent 37 years on the PFD. I loved the job. You know why? I had a tough wife. She was Italian. And tough. She was so Italian, she had told me, years ago after we went to a funeral in Chelsea, Mass. She pulled me aside and said, “You see Uncle Al there? He’s Whitey Bulger’s right-hand man.” I says to the wife, “If I had known you were related to him, I never would’ve married you.” (laughs). She was tough. But it worked out. I was married 66 years. Bruce (his son) used to come over and she would make him linguica and eggs. That was his thing. He would come over and him and her would talk about plants and cooking. I could do neither. (laughs) TT- Bruce was one of the best cooks on the job. So was Bobby. JB- And Bobby lives right there. (he points out his kitchen window at a house up the hill.) When we first moved here that was all trees. We knocked them down and had that built by a guy on the job, Bruno Maravelli. And the only reason I know I did a good job raising my kids is because they were good firemen. The rest I didn’t give a shit about, but they were good firemen. That made me proud. TT- Talk more about Stretch Tuitt. That guy was a legend. JB- He died early. He was the Chief’s driver before he made lieutenant. Chief Connolly, who went from private to Chief, he didn’t know anything. My brother was his driver. And my brother used to have to drive him to the racetrack. He would sit outside, and if an alarm came in, he would hit the siren to alert the chief. Connolly was hooked on the horses. Galant was after Connolly and he was a party guy. Once Mayor Kinch took over, in 1987, 56 guys retired. We had 56 parties. TT- That was the 70% buy-out, right? To get everyone off the job so he could hire his own guys? JB- Yes. That’s how I made BC. There was a BC named Farris. He comes up to me and goes, “JB. When my son gets on, I’ll get off.” So I made BC. TT- Any regrets? JB- If I didn’t make Assistant Chief, I would’ve stayed three more years. I loved being BC. I have a grandson, Christopher. He used to live right around the corner. I’d pick him up and take him to fires. I enjoyed that. It was so much fun. I had a great platoon. I got them together and said, “Hey. You do your jobs. Only call me if you need me.” These were all seasoned guys who had been through the 60s and 70s. That’s the secret of being BC. You don’t want to micromanage. When Doire went out, we had an Assistant Chief who made Chief for a month. Chief Lundegren, and boy, he hated me. TT- Why? JB- Because I brought him in the room and asked him why he crossed the picket line. TT- Oh, he was one of them. JB- Yes. Bannon crossed and I never talked to him again. On another note, I went to a funeral last month, Norm Partington. On Dunnell Lane there used to be a barrel shop. We went in there one night. We went in, there was smoke everywhere, and he (Norm) was right behind me. As I jumped over a barrel, it caught me. I was going down. And when the smoke cleared the owner said, “That sewer’s 19-feet down and there’s a thousand broken bottles down there.” I would’ve bled to death. The fall wouldn’t have killed me, but I would’ve bled to death because they wouldn’t have been able to get me out in time. So I was at the funeral. You ever hear of Frank Sylvester? TT- Yes. JB- Well, 40 years ago we were friends. Then he crossed the picket line. For 40 years, I never talked to him. But I put all that aside. That day, I took him through the funeral, and he had a tear in his eye. For 40 years I never talked to him because he had looked me right in the eye and said he wouldn’t cross the picket line. That’s what bothered me. He looked me in the eye and then crossed anyway. TT- He was a union guy too, right? JB- He started off working for me back in the day. TT- What rank were you when they crossed the picket line? JB- Lieutenant. I graduated from Roger Williams with Kinch who went on to become mayor. TT- Sounds like you had a great career. JB- I did. The reason I keep going to the retiree meetings is to see the guys. And I’m the old man now. Frank Boisclair too. We weren’t friends then but we’re friends now. TT- Hey, Chief, thanks for sitting down with me. JB- Have a great career.
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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
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