Fighting Fire

by Caroline Paul

Book Overview

She fought the prejudice. She fought the stereotype. Then she fought the greatest force of all-- fire. When the San Francisco Fire Department broke their all-male rule to hire women, Caroline Paul... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312185812
• ISBN13: 9780312185817
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

WONDERFUL READ FOR EVERYONE

Caroline Paul started life out as a privileged yuppie hopeful. She attended a posh boarding school and then Stanford University. She graduated with the hopes of a distinguished journalism career. Instead, she became a firefighter. FIGHTING FIRE is a riveting story of learning to adapt to a different way of life, with its own rules and traditions. There are burning building and singed bodies - I shed plenty of tears reading this book - but this is not only an adventure book. This is a deeply moving story of how people learn in the end to get along - in the firehouse and on the streets. This book is not a whiny monologue about a Poor Me woman in a man's world. Ms. Paul has a generous, humorous perspective about the people she meets and she is always willing to concede her foibles. It is a thrilling yet insightful read. Both my husband and my local librarian (neither one firefighters!) loved it - Fighting Fire has something for everyone.

A BOOK FOR EVERYONE

As a female fire fighter I thought this book was one of the best books I have ever read. It shows the true facts that women in the service have to go through. I thought she used a really good imagery in the book making you feel that you were on the call. This is a good book for fire fighter men and female and for people whoare not fire fighters but like the adrenaline rush of an action book.

Excellent Book

If you are interested in what goes on in a Fire Department from a woman's perspective and see how the issues are delt with, this book is great, she also truely expresses her feelings and makes it very real for the reader to understand.

wow wow WOW

I did not expect to like this book but it was thrust into my hands by a friend who demanded: Read this. I dreaded a long technical discourse on fire trucks and the mechanics of fire but i instead got an eminently readable book about how a young woman matures under trying but exciting circumstances. Caroline Paul is in the beginning a likeable but arrogant, affluent preppie who, fearing the inevitable "trajectory" her life is taking towards a corporate desk job, falls into the blue collar world of firefighting. There she learns that life is much more complicated - and more poignant - than she had ever imagined. We follow her as she sees her first dead body, understands for the first time in her life what it is to be an "outsider" (and rather philosophically claims that it is good for her!), and goes into the deep, hot, black of a fire building. I cried when the babies died, laughed as the firehouse culture leapt from the page, and in the end rooted for the narrator to come to terms with herself. I stayed up all night reading it and I recommend it (with a loud guffaw and a hearty slap on the back)to all non-firefighters!

Couldn't put the book down.

Caroline Paul did a terrific job at explaining what it is like to be a female fire fighter in this day and age. Coming from another female fire fighter, i thought that her stories and descriptions were well written and heart felt. Paul's contribution to the fire service has not gone unnoticed and it is women like Paul that have made my entrance into this wonderful profession so much easier. Anyone who is interested in learning about what it is really like to be a female fire fighter should read this book!