Last night, I went to go see the movie
Burn (BURN: One Year On The Front Lines Of The Battle To Save Detroit).
The filmmakers are actually hosting 4 fund-raising screenings in
Philadelphia (Last night and tonight) at the Prince Music Theater –
Tickets and info here.
Having seen the various trailers and sneak peeks (here, here, and here) for Burn, I was
really looking forward to the film
The audience was probably 85-90% male,
and many had fire service t-shirts on. First, I was trying to figure
out why the theater was full of folks with IAFF and FD shirts from
all over the USA. Then I remembered that the IAFF is holding their
convention in Philly right now, so it made a little more sense.
The film covers, at least peripherally,
the “big things” that have been going on in Detroit for the last
few years. From Charlie LeDuff's investigative reporting (DaveStatter tells of LeDuff's antics reporting here), Detroit's “browning
out” of companies, the death of Ivory Ivey in 2011, and
serious firefighter injuries and deaths, including an 8/13/10 (Friday13th) building collapse with serious FF injuries, and the
11/15/2008 LODD of Senior Firefighter Walter Harris in a roof collapse.
As the film opens, we are introduced to
the crew of Engine 50, one of Detroit's busiest fire companies, on
the war-zone East Side of the city, and we follow them through a year
of fighting fires and personal battles. A big point is the equipment
issues faced by Detroit's firefighters, such as apparatus that is
out-of-service, or run down to the point of falling apart. One scene
shows a firefighter with duck tape on his turnout boots, because the
rubber toe cap was falling off. Another shows the (current, for now)
Fire Commissioner touring the apparatus shops, showing the truck that
was hit by a train, an engine that was driven under a bridge, and
other battle scars on apparatus.
Part of the story is shown through the
eyes of FEO (Engineer) Dave Parnell a 30-odd-year veteran of DFD.
He's presented as the senior man in the firehouse, and he's also a
resident of the East Side. Parnell is presented alongside arson
investigation staff and serves as a “tour guide” of the burned
out hulks and vacant lots that cover the city. Detroit has 80,000 or
so of those abandoned structures., lots of which are boarded up after
fires or vandalism that has already weakened them. Those structures
are time bombs for the Fire Department – only a matter of time
until someone lights them off again, and in their already weakened
state, they are practically death-traps for the firefighters. Many of
the firefighters in the film punctuate the discussion of these risks
with stories of their own injuries.
Speaking of injuries, the filmmakers
spend a lot of time covering Firefighter Brendan Milewski, and his
recovery after being paralyzed in the 8/13/10 building collapse.
That, coupled with the other injuries that are covered really seemed
to hit home with a lot of the crowd, and the potential for death and
serious injury was discussed at some length in the Q&A session.
During that Q&A, Brendan even mentioned that volunteers take the
same risks, and EVERYONE needs to understand the potential for a
life-altering injury or death.
In the end, the film does a fantastic
job of covering the PEOPLE that are fighting to save Detroit, one
fire call at a time. It's like a cinematic Report From Engine Company 82 – except with fewer resources and quite probably
more fire. In the Q&A, the firefighters said that after the most
recent cutbacks, Detroit is only running 40-50 companies a day, instead of the almost 70 that are on the books as in service. they are leaving the firehouse every evening and
running non-stop until almost 5am – every shift. The movie does as
good a job of capturing the intensity of their job, and the drama of
their lives as well. As honest, and therefore bad, as it presents the
City of Detroit, it really honors the firefighters.
So – Keep an eye on Burn's website, Facebook, and Twitter. Go to a fund-raising screening, if you can. If not,
keep your eyes open. They say they are hoping to release the film
this fall – but the filmmakers need to raise HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS
of dollars to cover costs before the film can be released. They have
funded almost the entire movie like this (there's a big list of donors in the
credits). So if you really want to see this film released –
consider donating a few bucks to make it happen. This is a story that
needs to be told.
Other background on the film:
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