The brass fire pole, that abiding image of firehouse tradition, may be going the way of the Dalmatian.
No one knows how many of the poles in the nation's 49,200 stations stand idle or have been removed, but clearly their use is on the downward slide.
A few poles have even been replaced with slides. Many poles being installed in new fire stations are mostly decorative.
"The pole has become something of an anachronism," said Carroll Wills, spokesman for the California Professional Firefighters. "If you've got a midnight call and ... you're still groggy--trying to get adrenaline flowing--a jump on a sheer drop of 30 feet might not make that much sense."
Others say modern safety measures defeat the notion of sliding for speed. The holes surrounding the poles at a Santa Monica station, for example, will be sealed with doors, a now customary safety precaution.
Still, Wills said, "It's a fire station and, by gosh, a station should have a fire pole."
The image has endured so strongly that firefighters giving station tours almost always ride the awe-inspiring brass pole.
When asked recently, all the students in a third-grade class at Roosevelt Elementary in Santa Monica said that they believe polished brass is the route of choice among the nation's bravest. And one of the coolest parts of the job.
But when kids are out of earshot, firefighters will say they usually spend more time polishing the brass poles than riding them.
Kelley Needham, an architect who specializes in firehouse design at WLC Architects in Rancho Cucamonga, said most of the poles in his latest designs are firehouse chic requested by city administrators, not firefighters.
"I'm putting two in Santa Monica, although they weren't used in the station we tore down," Needham said. "Some cities are asking for three or more poles in a single station."
Fire poles date back to the late 19th century, when firefighters' living quarters were built above garages in urban stations where land was scarce. In the firefighting game of seconds, it was quicker to grab the pole than to stagger down a staircase.
Poles were first made of wood and, later, of brass. At least one turn-of-the-century brass pole is still used in New York City.
One State Outlaws Poles
Since then, the cool and daring concept of poles has crashed into the reality of fragile ankles and burning hands. Pole sliding isn't even in some fire academies' curricula.
