Fire pole

Fire pole (or fire pole ) - a smooth pole-shaped construction made of wood or metal and installed between floors in some fire stations and a depot, allowing firefighters to descend (by sliding along the pole) with an alarm faster than on a normal staircase.

The first fire pole appeared in the 1870s in Chicago at the three-story fire station No. 21 ^[1] ; until that time, firefighters usually used spiral staircases. Its first floor was used to place fire-fighting equipment, on the second, firemen were resting and sleeping, on the third there was hay for horses carrying a fire truck; To transport this hay, a large wooden pole was used, which, when not needed, was also stored on the third floor. During an emergency call on April 21, 1878, a fireman named George Reid used this pole to quickly jump from the second floor to the first ^[2] , which made a great impression on fire captain David Kenyon, who decided to create a permanent pole-post in the area type. In the same 1878, he managed to obtain permission from his immediate superior to install a pole and punch a hole for him between the first and second floors of the site. The pole was made of wood from George pine, had 3 inches in diameter, was sanded and coated with several layers of varnish and a layer of paraffin. Initially, the use of the pole at station No. 21 caused ridicule, but soon the city authorities recognized the effectiveness of using the poles during urgent night calls and decided to install them in all fire departments of the city; soon they began to spread to other cities in the United States and in other countries. In 1880, the first brass fire pole was installed in Boston ^[3] .

The use of a fire pole is associated with the risk of a wide variety of injuries; in some fire departments, additional safety measures for firefighters have been taken to prevent them (for example, the presence of large pillows around poles on which firefighters can land) ^{[4] [5]} . In December 2010, the USA began the mass dismantling of fire poles in fire stations as hazardous structures ^[6] , but in some areas they still remain ^[5] . Newly built fire stations in the United States are usually single-story ^[7] .

A fire pole (or, as it is called in Russia, a launch post) - wooden or metal, has been used in fire departments in the Russian Federation for more than 140 years for rapid descent from the upper floors of the building to the lower.