Report From Engine Co. 82

Dennis Smith is a member of the busiest engine company in New York, one that averages 700 call a month. His firehouse is in the South Bronx, a community with more homicides, more drug traffic, and more prostitution per square mile than anywhere else in the United States. In Report From Engine Co. 82, Smith recreates a fireman's life as it has never before appeared in print. With him you climb the ladders into burning buildings, crawl Indian-fashion down treacherous halls through poisonous black smoke, knowing that the ceiling may fall or the floor collapse or a hidden explosive ignite. Alongside him, you watch friends die - and see lives saved with bare and blistered hands. Firemen never know what they'll meet when they respond to an alarm - a fire, a family quarrel, a hold-up, a homicide. Whatever the emergency, the fireman is prepared to handle it.