Burn

Parnell: I wish my head could forget what my eyes have seen

in 32 years of firefighting.

Interviewer: Why do you do this?

Miller: We love...

I love my job.

It does... it's something with adrenaline

that gets you pumped up (alarm).

And here we go!

Woman: (screams).

Woman: Got to regroup, keep it moving, that's the best I can do.

Craig: That right there times 30 a night, times 30 years,

is how you burn a city down... one at a time.

Man: It was probably the most beautiful city back in the day,

you know, when there was factories everywhere,

there was people spending money around here.

The car industry was booming.

Man: It was much easier to get a job and it was more

of a family atmosphere then.

You didn't have to lock your doors.

Man: I grew up in Detroit.

I've seen the City change from a nice, decent neighborhood

to certain areas that just look like bombs have hit them.

Man: Most of the neighborhoods are blighted, vacant lots.

Next to vacant dwellings.

Parnell: We've got probably one, two, three, four...

six, seven, eight vacants on my block.

Dennis: It kind of hurts me to see the City getting destroyed like this,

I feel like I'm in the burning of Rome sometime.

Man: Population loss, I've watched it go from a city

of one-point-eight million to seven-hundred thousand,

leaves a lot of vacant homes.

Man: The bottom line is everybody that can seems to be fleeing.

Man: I mean, this has been Katrina without the hurricane.

Woman: Our city is crumbling around us.

Man: Imagine two-thirds of the people in your city disappeared,

but they left their houses, their garbage, their furniture.

Doogie: As long as there's people leaving,

as long as there's vacant houses, there's going to be fires,

it's called fire load, there's more things to burn.

Man: The neighborhood of our district is, statistically,

one of the worst places on earth for crime, for poverty.

Man: So they were shooting, too?

Man: Came out right here.

Woman: And the other one was right there.

Man: High murder rate, high infant mortality rate.

Reporter: Police telling me this is not just a murder, but an execution.

Man: Crimes that you never would, in a million years,

thought would happen in your neighborhood.

Woman: In the City of Detroit last year alone,

we had over 30,000 actual fire calls.

I mean, we're in trouble, we need help.

Parnell: This don't have nothing to do with the City,

this is must my own personal edge (alarm).

My name is David Parnell, I'm a FEO,

Field Engine Operator, for Engine Company 50.

Craig: Dave Parnell and I were hired about the same time,

1977, great guy, solid guy.

You feel safe when he's behind the wheel.

He'll get you water within 60 seconds of being on the fire drop.

Parnell:That's my part.

That's what I do.

Craig:The soul, if you will, of the firehouse.

He's pretty well loved and respected by everybody here.

Chris: Dave is old (laughs).

He has to retire.

Man: He's like Papa Bear.

He's in there, we catch him nodding off in there a little bit.

Man: He's watching an old Western, black and white.

It's okay, he's earned it.

Miller: Sometimes, I just need a little Parnell.

Parnell: What is a man's worth

that doesn't make the world a better place?

What's a gang besides a family looking for a home?

Think about it.

Jeff: My favorite one is when he says,

"I wish my mind could forget what my eyes have seen..."

Parnell: Could forget what my eyes have seen.

Miller: We call it bullshit (laughter).

Craig: Yeah!

.

Man: But it is comforting.

Man: It is totally comforting.

Man: Well, never get that from Dan.

Dave: Come on Dave, I need some bullshit.

Man: You're going to get some bullshit from Parnell.

Parnell: You know, I've been here so long, you know,

you feel like a fixture, thirty-three years.

Yeah, thirty-three years of firefighting,

I have eight months left, and then I'll retire, I'll be 60.

Interviewer: Are you ready to go?

Parnell: Absolutely... no, not at all.

This is my neighborhood, this is where I live,

this is where I fight my fires.

You used to could walk in this neighborhood.

Well, now, you're pretty much afraid to walk to the corner.

This is where some

of the firefighters lived and grew up, right here.

And now look at it, that was a fire job right there,

you can tell by the soot that was in the front of the dwelling.

We've been to that apartment building over there,

at least a half-a-dozen times that I know of.

We actually saved a young man out of this one, 18011,

actually saved a young man

out of that one.

When you look around the City, you look at the burnt-out homes.

That's when you get this attitude, "This is no good."

And I don't understand it, I'm not going to understand it.

If you live in the community in which you work, how do you not do something

for the people that are around you?

You have an opportunity to make change.

Dispatcher: Report of a growing fire...

Man: Ninety-five percent of what I do is arson.

Very rarely do we have a legitimate fire (siren).

Woman:The building's on fire!

We can't get out!

Man: Somebody went in through the back door,

went upstairs, and they lit the place.

Man:You go up stairs you can smell some kind of accelerant or something.

Lewis: I can't picture another city that's like this

where so many of the fires are arson.

It's beyond me why people would want to burn their own city down.

Craig:There's arson for profit.

There's arson for revenge.

And then there's just arson for kicks.

Man: It used to infuriate me that this was going on night after night,

and nobody, nobody seemed to care.

But I mean, we're doing this for the people that are left,

and for the houses are occupied.

You got to be tough.

Man: The exhaustion can be depressing.

Man: To blow off steam, you probably have ten methods

for every individual, you know?

Jeff: We'll clean it.

Man: Whoa!

Tony: Weird pink nursing home.

Man: Nice.

Man: Ohhhh.

Man: Holy cow!

Man: Whoo!

Craig: Yeah, the DFD swagger.

I mean, we're above the law.

Detroit firemen think they can do whatever they want.

Cowboys in a big rodeo (alarm).

Man: We do things a little differently, rigs pull up.

Man: Oh, it's in the basement.

Man: Guys go right in, we advance to the heart of the fire.

Parnell: Other guys are fighting fires, you see water shooting in,

we fight fires, you'll see water shooting out.

Whoa!You got me!

Parnell: Detroit puts the fires out from the inside out.

Plain and simple.

Dennis: When we go on a fire, we're kind of hyped up.

We're like, "Let's go!"

"Ah!" You know, you're tackling this thing like it's some type of dragon.

And we don't really lose too often.

Man: Hot as fucking shit!

Man: We have people that come from across country, around the world

to just watch us fight fire.

Man: Well, I don't know if I should say that,

but we fight fires with balls.

That's (laughs)...

Man: It's the best boys' club in the world!

We get paid to be here.

Miller: I like coming to work., I look forward to it.

I think you'll hear that from most of the guys,

ask anyone in the private sector, and you'll probably hear differently.

Man: This job is fun!

You get to turn the lights on, the siren on,

you get to run through red lights.

Let's

Man: We actually live together 24 hours, since there's a closeness,

the trust factor is there.

Jeff: The busier you are, the more you bond.

We're tight, it's a brotherhood, that's just how we roll.

Man: That's the team that we have, the family that we have,

the trust that we have for one another.

Doogie: Most firemen are social creatures,

we like to hang out, we like to enjoy life.

A lot of times people compare being a fireman

to being a member of a social club.

They might be onto something.

Miller: Brendan Milewski, who was a trial man here,

he was probably the youngest guy to be here,

come 20-years-old, or 18-years-old.

Man: Nineteen, something like that, he come on, yeah.

Miller: Fresh-faced kid.

I don't think he ever made a bed himself when he got here.

Jeff: My buddy, Doogie.

Silly picture of us back in probably 2000 at HarleyFest.

Doogie: I got on the job when I was 20-years-old.

After 11 years, I was content, I was happy.

It was August, I'd been off for like seven or nine days.

I had a nice stretch of days off, so I was excited

to go back to work, see the guys.

I got there a little after seven o'clock.

And before I could come in and say hello, and see what we had going

on for that day, the alert went off and we got the run (sirens).

Doogie: Once we got rolling, and turned down Dickerson,

and saw this huge towering column of smoke,

you knew it was just not the way you wanted