January 13, 2009
Speaker: Francis “Kip” Deleonibus, Asst. Chief of Operations, Pittsburgh Fire Bureau
Pittsburgh Fire Bureau dates it’s history back to 1794 and became a fully professional department in 1869.
Trivia
* A Pittsburgh firefighter became the only one memorialized by statue at the National Firefighters monument.
*A Pittsburgh firefighter, Marina Betts, was one of the world’s first female volunteer firefighters. In 1820, Marina Betts served as a volunteer in Pittsburgh and claimed she never missed an alarm during her ten years as a firefighter. Paul Ditzel(America’s unsurpassed writer on firefighting topics) stated: “Betts became famous for dumping buckets of water over male bystanders who refused to help fight fires.”
Squirrel Hill Historical Society 