The headlines in the Lincoln Daily Star more than 110 years ago heralded the heroics of a now ordinary piece of firefighting equipment. "Smoke Helmet Was Useful" "The Damage at Harpham's Building was Held in Check in a Novel Manner"
On Nov. 5, 1906, a fire broke out in the saddle factory's wholesale warehouse at Eighth and P streets. The building is now home to businesses including Vincenzo's Ristorante and The Tavern.
"Chief (Horace) Clement saw that the situation was a dangerous one," the article read. "Smoke was pouring up the elevator shaft and driving out the occupants of the top floors of the building."
An all-service gas mask made for miners but adopted by firefighters at the time helped them get into the furnace room and put out the blaze, which caused the 2016 equivalent of $500,000 damage.
Until the helmet arrived in the early 1900s, Lincoln's firefighters grew and groomed their own smoke protection.
"(Early) firefighters -- one of the reasons they had big beards, mustaches and things like that was to filter smoke, their snot and that other stuff," said Lincoln Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief Tim Linke.
Then came the smoke helmet, put to use for the first time that November morning to fight a fire started by scraps of waste leather stored too close to the furnace.
The helmet cost the city $150 at the time, the 2016 equivalent of almost $3,800.
The burning leather gave out a smothering, suffocating smoke, the article read.
Using the helmet, two firemen alternated fighting the blaze. The helmet protected their eyes and nostrils as air was pumped in from outside using a bellows. A speaking tube allowed for communication.
"Chief Clement this morning declared that the smoke helmet saved the day," the 1906 story said. "Without it, the firemen would have been handicapped and, perhaps, life would have been lost."
A disabled resident unable to make it out of the building when the fire broke out waited it out on the roof, the article said.
Although the helmet was the hero that day, firefighters neglected to use it over the years, said Linke and fellow Battalion Chief Eric Jones.
Each rig might have had one smoke helmet, "but nobody touched it," Jones said.
Those who used breathing equipment were seen as weaker firefighters by their peers, he said.
Jones, who started in 1994, remembers the time an older fire captain tapped him on the shoulder while he was looking for fire amid heavy smoke and directed him to the blaze.
"When it was crystal clear (inside), you realized this guy doesn't have a mask on," Jones said.
"And we're wearing everything," Linke said.
Jones and Linke consider themselves lucky they started their careers in the 1990s as the profession moved toward mandated use of so-called self-contained breathing apparatus.
"With our air masks on, we still have twice the cancer rate (than) normal people," Jones said.