Burning desire to help

It’s been a long time since Vito Maggiolo had to clean the pots after dinner at the firehouse. He’s been at Rescue Squad 1 in downtown Washington long enough to do the more interesting chores, such as checking the equipment or racking the hose.

He’s always ready jump on the truck in response to a call, but during downtime, he’s just as happy to sit around and shoot the breeze with the guys from 2 Platoon.

As much as Mr. Maggiolo is one of the guys, however, he’s not technically a fireman. He’s what’s known as a fire buff.

Ask any fireman if his house has a buff, and he’ll know what you’re talking about. Buffs are the rock groupies of the firefighting world. They have encyclopedic knowledge of firefighting history, equipment and techniques.

Most carry scanners, to know where the fire is at all times. They carry pagers tapped into elaborate buff-run nationwide networks that alert them to fires all over the country.

For whatever reasons, they’ve not been able to become career firefighters, but since the first time they saw a red engine speeding down the street, they’ve been hooked. Some will know the history of a particular firehouse better than the actual firefighters working there.

“I’ve been a buff as far back as I can recall,” says Mr. Maggiolo, 51, whose eyesight wasn’t good enough for him to join the department. He remembers his mother carrying him to see the firetruck at Engine Company 62 in the Bronx when he was 8 years old.

“Initially, it’s just the visuals. The young kids come to see the truck and the lights and they hang out. Some of them grow up and move on. But there are a certain percentage, like myself, who don’t.”

And for that percentage, there is, of course, a club. Mr. Maggiolo, a CNN assignment editor by day, is a member of the Friendship Fire Association. The Washington-area group aims “to perpetuate the international hobby of Fire Buffing by educational and social endeavors.” It also operates a canteen wagon at the scenes of fires, providing refreshments and shelter to firemen while they battle blazes.

Buff clubs are common in urban areas where there often isn’t an opportunity for firefighting enthusiasts to become volunteer firefighters. Still, many volunteer firefighters are buffs, and vice versa.

“Buffs have what I like to call ‘the romance of firefighting’ in the blood,” says Keith Franz of the International Fire Buff Association, an umbrella group that includes 90 buff clubs across the U.S. and Canada, and various individual members in Great Britain and Germany.

He estimates that among the IFBA’s 5,000 members, there are electricians, plumbers, lawyers, tailors, ministers and journalists. It is often said that former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is the biggest buff around.

So while most people would run away from a fire, why do these guys run to it?

“There’s a certain excitement and spontaneity,” says Mr. Maggiolo. “The real interest is watching the firefighting. It’s like watching this primeval battle between good and evil.”

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