Historian Has Burning Interest in Firefighting

Special effects created for director Ron Howard’s current movie “Backdraft” may sizzle, but they can’t hold a candle to the back draft Paul Ditzel experienced as a Chicago firefighter.

“I ran into a horrendous back draft during the great Chicago blizzard of ‘66,” said the 64-year-old Woodland Hills man who is also a fire historian with 14 books to his credit. A back draft occurs when a smoking fire appears to retreat but instead explodes when fed oxygen.

After Ditzel’s squad arrived at a four-story furniture warehouse fire, “ugly gray smoke started seeping through the mortar between the bricks of the building,” he said. “You know it’s cooking when that happens.”

The firefighters climbed a ladder to the roof and attempted to open a ventilation hole to release pent-up gases. “The roof started pumping up and down--like it was breathing and gasping in and out,” Ditzel said. “The fire was looking for someplace to go. It was seeking oxygen.”

The men leaped to an adjoining parapet, “because we knew the building was about to blow,” Ditzel said. “Then the back draft occurred on all four floors, all at once. I’ll never forget the sight. The building literally vomited--everything that was inside, like desks and chairs, spewed out, along with flames that weren’t there a second ago.”

Today, Ditzel, sometimes called the Dean of American Fire Historians, writes incendiary prose. He also volunteers as a Los Angeles Fire Department civilian fire inspector, the first to be appointed by the department in 1966.

“My purpose is to get into the hearts and minds of firefighters and make them come alive,” said Ditzel, who is currently writing a book about arson. “People think of us as these wooden figures, sitting around the firehouse playing checkers and pinochle all day. That’s just not the case.”

Ditzel’s “Fire Alarm! The Fascinating Story Behind the Red Box on the Corner” was recently released by Fire Buff House, which also published his other works, among them, “Fire Engines, Firefighters” and “A Century of Service,” which records the Los Angeles Fire Department’s first 100 years (1886-1986). The book has since ignited an interest in fire departments across the country looking to publish their own histories.

The product of five generations of firefighters, Ditzel started sliding down fire poles at age 7 with the help of several firefighting uncles in his Buffalo, N. Y., neighborhood. By age 14, “I was hooked,” Ditzel said.

As a reporter with the Buffalo Evening News, Ditzel covered many of the city’s fires. He later worked for the Chicago City News Bureau and the Associated Press while volunteering as a firefighter for a division of the Chicago Fire Department.

Bill Dahlquist, pilot of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Ralph J. Scott fireboat, was a source for Ditzel’s book “Fireboats.” “He really makes the whole business of firefighting come alive, and that’s not easy to do,” Dahlquist said. “Paul has connections all over the country and the world. He knows all the fire chiefs--new and old.”

Ditzel moved to Woodland Hills 12 years ago and soon after fought his last fire--when his house was damaged due to the faulty installation of a water heater. The house has since been rebuilt. “It was a $250,000 loss,” he said. “I leaned a ladder against the back of the house and took a garden hose up to the roof. But it didn’t help.”