{"id":27,"date":"2015-02-20T22:50:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-21T04:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/from-the-library-burn.html"},"modified":"2015-02-24T19:21:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T01:21:00","slug":"from-the-library-burn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/from-the-library-burn.html","title":{"rendered":"From the library: Burn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yeah, so this is a film, not a book. \u00a0It\u2019s about firefighters in Detroit, and it\u2019s probably available at your local library, so go check it out. <\/p>\n

The film is a documentary, shot from December 2010 to October 2011. \u00a0It\u2019s labelled as being produced by \u201cGeneral Motors Entertainment Marketing\u201d and I wondered if GM was getting into the film business, but that just means that when PBS, which initially was going to fund the project, pulled out, GM stepped in with the funding. \u00a0Here\u2019s the website<\/a>, and here\u2019s a newspaper article<\/a>. \u00a0It follows the crew at one firehouse, and also features scenes of the new fire commissioner trying to fix the department (and even shows him vacuuming his office, because the janitor was let go).<\/p>\n

The sad thing? \u00a0As the website says, \u201cpart of every movie ticket you\u2019ve purchased, every DVD, Blu-ray, poster and T-shirt \u2014 went toward new equipment for Detroit firefighters. Thanks to you, we\u2019ve been able to donate more than $310,000 of much-needed new equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another movie, about the Chicago Fire Department, or the New York Fire Department, would probably fund scholarships for the children of firefighters injured or killed in the line of duty. \u00a0Detroit needs the cash just to have enough equipment to fight the fires.<\/p>\n

And it is certainly an illustration of the unfairness of things that suburbs like my own have all the shiny new equipment they could ask for, used so seldom that it\u2019s major news, locally, when there\u2019s a fire \u2014 and the Detroit firefighters, make do with duct tape repairs.<\/p>\n

Per Wikipedia<\/a>,<\/p>\n

In 2011, the DFD responded to over 9,000 working structural fires. Over 95% of the structural fires the DFD faces are caused by arson, fifty times the national average for arson-related fires. About 85% of the arson fires that occur daily in Detroit occur in vacant homes. There are no accurate statistics considering the arson rates in Detroit, due to the fact that only a fraction of the fires can be investigated by the highly understaffed arson unit. Only investigated fire scenes can be ruled arson. The others just remain \u201csuspicious\u201d fires.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By comparison, New York City has about 25,000 fires per year (again, Wikipedia<\/a>). \u00a0But bearing in mind New York\u2019s larger size, Detroit has over 4 times as many fires as New York when calculated on a per-capita basis, or on a per-firefighter basis. \u00a0Put another way, there are 37 stations in Detroit, so, on average, each fire station fights 243 fires per year.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the other thing: \u00a0Detroit is, it\u2019s true, a disaster of a city. \u00a0But having grown up in the Detroit area, and now living in Chicago, I do feel like Detroit has more of an identity, a feeling of \u201chometown-ness\u201d for its residents (whether Detroit proper or the region) than Chicago, which may be far more prosperous but is still pretty much \u201cmeh\u201d in terms of what makes it special, good or bad. \u00a0I get more emotional about its fate, and can\u2019t just write it off as \u201cserves them right.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, then again, maybe one always feels that way about one\u2019s hometown. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah, so this is a film, not a book. \u00a0It\u2019s about firefighters in Detroit, and it\u2019s probably available at your local library, so go check it out. The film is a documentary, shot from December 2010 to October 2011. \u00a0It\u2019s labelled as being produced by \u201cGeneral Motors Entertainment Marketing\u201d and I wondered if GM was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,9],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-from-the-library","tag-detroit"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the library: Burn<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yeah, so this is a film, not a book.  It's about firefighters in Detroit, and it's probably available at your local library, so go check it out. 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