Chief William “Bill” Feehan kept a photo on his desk at the FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn. He and his young grandson Connor stand beaming in the photo on a fireboat in New York Harbor. The sky is a bright blue, with only a few clouds to shadow the New York City skyline. The fabric of the Feehan family has been closely interwoven with that of New York’s fire department for more than a century, and the journalist Brian McDonald has been entrusted with their stories. A similar theme of devoted service runs through this history of fires and those who fought them, one replete with department legends, love stories and fallen buildings.

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