This role was designated to white men primarily and white people only. According to the Harvard business review:

When Africans tried to organize our own fire fighting capacity the following happened, according to African scholars Chuck Milligan and Rev. Ron Ballew,

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

In 1818 a group calling themselves the African Fire Association met to complete plans for forming a fire and hose company. A meeting was held and officers of the organization elected one of them being Derrick Johnson president, and the other Joseph Allen, secretary. A committee for soliciting subscriptions was appointed. Some of the circulars that they were using to promote their organization fell into the hands of white firemen.

This brought about a conference of the white fire companies the meeting held at a place called Stell's Tavern. About twenty-five companies were represented. A resolution was passed reading: "The formation of fire-engine and hose companies by persons of color will be productive of serious injury to the peace and safety of citizens in time of fire, and it is earnestly recommended to the citizens of Philadelphia to give them no support, aid, or encouragement in the formation of their companies, as there are as many, if not more, companies already existing than are necessary at fires or are properly supported"


The committee was appointed at this meeting to see to it that authorities did not allow them to open fire plugs. Another meeting was held on the 13th of July, with even more companies attending. Here the committee reported that they had contacted the watering committee on Councils and that they said they were required to grant a license to any fire association applying for the use of the plugs to fight fire."

The African firefighters met and considered public protest against the white firefighters intervention,  but a rash of colonial violence, including the firebombing of an African orphanage suppressed such a movement. 

A similar occurrence happened between the Philadelphia fire department and the black community in 1985 when neo-colonial mayor Wilson Goode ordered the bombing of the MOVE house on Osage Avenue.

This assault not only involved the police dropping a c4 bomb on an entire neighborhood block in west Philly, but also the strict orders for the fire department to allow the flames to engulf all of the houses on fire, thus exposing the fire department as an arm of the colonial state.

"The ensuing fire killed 11 of the people in the house, six adults and five children: John Africa, Rhonda Africa, Theresa Africa, Frank Africa, Conrad Africa, Tree Africa, Delisha Africa, Netta Africa, Little Phil Africa, Tomaso Africa, and Raymond Africa. The fire spread and eventually destroyed 61 nearby houses. After the fire broke out, firefighters were held back and the high powered water cannons at their disposal, called "squirts", were not turned on until one and a half hours after the bombs were dropped. Mayor Goode later testified at a 1996 trial that he had ordered the fire to be put out only after the bunker had burned. Sambor said he received the order, but the fire commissioner testified that he did not receive the order.[1] Ramona Africa, one of the two MOVE survivors from the house, said that police fired at those trying to escape."

Today, the results of this colonial-capitalist dominance over the institution of firefighting are evident in part in the composition of its personnel.

"96% of U.S. career firefighters are men, and 82% are white. This homogeneity is striking, especially when you compare it to the U.S. military, which is 85% men and 60% white, and local police forces, which are 88% men and 73% white."

However the fundamental question is not the "racial" composition of the firefighting staff, but the class character of its activities.  An all black fire dept, if under the leadership of the colonialist-capitalist ruling class would be of no more benefit to the Black community than an all white one. 

Today's US. and UK firefighting institutions are a part of the superstructure of the colonial-capitalist social system.  Meaning they are in place to protect the colonial mode of production, which is the base of the colonial capitalist system.

Under such arrangement colonial-capitalist firefighting will always do the following:

1. Protect the private property of the colonialist-capitalist ruling class. 

2. Promote the legitimacy of the colonialist-capitalist system and state, which has always been hostile to independent black self government and municipal services.

3. Oppose the independent capacity of oppressed people to self determination and control of our own firefighting institutions.

This is why Africans death in fire is more likely to occur than white people.


In a paper written by David Bishai, MD, MPH, PhD and Sunmin Lee, BA entitled Heightened Risk of Fire Deaths Among Older African Americans and Native Americans,

"Compared with non-Hispanic white people, Native American and African American people older than 55 years of age experienced a higher risk of death from fires and burns. The rate ratio of burn/fire deaths for African Americans compared with white people was 3.14 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.98, 3.31) for those aged 55 years and older. The corresponding rate ratio for Native Americans compared with white people was 1.93 (95% CI 1.49, 2.46) for those aged 55 years and older."

"Examining race/ethnicity-specific differences in injury across the life course is important because social roles and exposures to injurious social and physical environments do not remain static across age groups."

Most recently the fires in the Bronx and Philadelphia confirm this report.

The colonial basis of fires in the African community was best summed up in the 2017 article by ASI secretary general Luwezi Kinshasa:

"LONDON––A fire broke out in the Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey building located in West London on the early morning of Tuesday June 14, 2017 at about 1am.

The fire spread extremely quickly, engulfing the entire building in a matter of 15 minutes and condemning its inhabitants to a certain death.

The infamous building, demonized by both the government and the media, was mainly inhabited by poor and working class people from colonized places in Africa, Syria, the Caribbean, South Asia and elsewhere, along with poor white workers.

We united with all the demands from victims of this colonial mayhem, such as to be rehoused in the same borough.

We united to charge the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management organization KCMO, a subcontractor company that managed the Grenfell Tower on behalf of the Kensington and Chelsea local council–for murders...

The fire was caused by colonial living conditions, which are death traps."

Colonial-capitalism is a system driven by profit for the white colonizer nation through the political, military and economic domination of colonized peoples. 

All interactions between the colonizer state and colonized people is driven by this profit.

Insurance companies make a lot of money off fire policies land lord take out to ensure they don't lose wealth from fires. And while both sectors of the ruling class win, such profit comes at the expense of the material well being of the colonized workers.

The immediate result of such opportunism is the lack of functional and effective fire prevention equipment. 

Some have criticized the Philadelphia housing authority for not checking to see if each apartment had working fire alarms.

At the same time others have correctly noted that the fire in Philadelphia public housing will result in the state is imposing mandatory inspections of apartments that may include eviction of tenants determined to be in violation of PHA tenant standards.

However, fire alarms are not the question.

And the fact that PHA would see the eviction of Black people from their housing as a solution to what it perceived to be a social contradiction is evidence of the profit driven nature of the system.  what would rendering someone homeless accomplish besides provide the State with the excuse to not have to fulfill the needs of Black people.

On an immediate level the fire in Grenfell and the most recent cases in Philadelphia and the Bronx, more effective fire prevention systems would have prevented the fires from spreading beyond one apartment and definitely from killing anyone.

Firefighters in general are not what's needed. In fact,

"In 2016, only 4% of emergency calls to which U.S. fire departments responded were actually fires. The majority (64%) were medical emergencies." According to Harvard business review.

Common sense tells us that what is needed is effective mechanisms to prevent fires and control fires in such a way that they do not cause serious injury to people. 

Pye Barker Fire and safety, established in 1948, is one of the most advanced private provider of fire and safety in the u s.  In it's section on sprinkler systems it says,

"Fire Sprinkler Systems design, installation, & inspection

It doesn’t take long for a fire to engulf your business. Everything can go up in flames in the time that it takes for first responders to arrive at the scene. That’s why it’s important to have a properly operating fire sprinkler system to douse an active fire or keep the flames at bay until firefighters can fully extinguish it. A functional sprinkler system can be the difference between a minor inconvenience and a catastrophic business loss."

Note that they say nothing about preventing "catastrophic loss" of human lives.

Confires Fire protection system goes further in explaining the benefits of it's best fire extinguishing system,

"The Benefits Of FM-200 Systems For Your Office

FM-200 is the best fire suppression system for a number of situations, including:

Offices or other places where people may be present during a fire. FM-200 is non-toxic, and the health impact of a fire suppression system is always important in areas where crowds are frequent.

Places where entry and exit areas could be blocked—since FM-200 is a gaseous agent, it is able to respond quickly to fires.

Offices and other buildings with electrical appliances that can’t be exposed to water. Such offices include telecommunication centers, data centers, museums, and vaults. In places like these, water can do as much damage as a fire—FM-200 offers total protection.

Environmentally friendly office spaces—FM-200 is non-toxic and doesn’t harm the environment the way other fire suppression systems, such as Halon, do."

There will be Need for fire prevention and overall public safety in revolutionary society.  However this question is concentrated in the question of housing conditions.

While we are not fire suppression experts, we know enough to know that the most effective equipment and systems to prevent the start and spreading of fires in residential quarters is not currently in any public housing building, or homes where Black people live.

Part of the struggle to prevent the recurrence of the fires that took so many of our people's lives is the demand for state of the art fire prevention and extinguishing system in all black community housing, such as the FM-200.

This demand must be made as a part of the struggle for black community control of the police and black self determination as a whole.

As stated in point number 10 of the 19 point platform for Black political self determination,

"Right to Housing that is safe, secure, habitable and affordable, with freedom from forced eviction and the process of red lining, traditionally used to deny housing to black people. In addition, we demand reparations for the loss of billions of dollars in Black wealth due to home foreclosures stemming from the U.S. government-supported subprime mortgage scam. Just as the financial institutions that perpetrated the scam were rescued through the massive infusion of federal dollars, so too must the victims of this crime be made whole through a reparations process overseen by representatives of the families and communities that were most grievously harmed."

Editors note: the original draft of this document did not address the following important points:

1.  Recognition of the fact that bourgeois media is currently attempting to sum up the fires in Philadelphia and the bronx in such a way that assumes the permanency of the system of colonial-capitalism while also ignoring the fact that their solutions do not speak to the floods in Brazil,  earthquakes in Haiti or fires in the slums of Chile- contradictions that all have their source in US Imperialism.

2. Address the historic relationship that US fire fighters have had to the colonial state and African people, and the material basis of the historic opportunistic role that white workers and the white left have had with the struggle for Black self determination.

3. Raise up the final analysis, the necessity to build the African Peoples Solidarity committee,  the Black community control of police and African socialist international.

4. IMMEDIATELY AND CONCRETELY, BCCP IS CALLING FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BLACK COMMUNITY CONTROL OF HOUSING COMMISSION THAT WOULD ASSUME AS ITS IMMEDIATE TASK THE INVESTIGATION TO IDENTIFY THE BEST EQUIPMENT IN EXISTENCE TO PREVENT FUTURE FIRES IN PUBLIC AND LOW INCOME HOUSING AND TO ENSURE THEIR EXPEDIENT INSTALLMENT.

-BCCP