Reading: Matching Features: Question 2

Organised firefighting has taken strikingly different institutional forms across history, shaped as much by politics and building materials as by the danger of fire itself.

In Rome, repeated fires devastated crowded, wood-framed apartment blocks until the emperor Augustus, early in the first century, established the Vigiles, a corps of several thousand men recruited mainly from the freed-slave population. Organised into cohorts stationed around the city, the Vigiles patrolled at night carrying buckets, hooks and axes, and were empowered to fine property owners who kept flammable materials in violation of building rules, making Rome's brigade as much a fire-prevention police force as an emergency response unit.

A different model emerged centuries later in Song-dynasty China, where the crowded wooden cities of Kaifeng and later Hangzhou built networks of tall watchtowers, staffed around the clock so that a fire could be spotted and its location signalled to the nearest brigade within minutes. Unlike Rome's centrally organised corps, these Song brigades were funded and staffed at the neighbourhood level, with each watchtower's crew responsible only for extinguishing fires within its own assigned district, using bucket relays drawn from wells and canals.

London took a further step after the Great Fire of 1666 destroyed much of the old city: insurance companies, newly aware of the cost of unchecked fires, began forming their own private brigades and issued customers metal "fire marks" to fix to their walls, so that a company's crew would know, on arriving, whether a burning building was actually insured with them before committing their equipment.

In the nineteenth-century United States, brigades made up of unpaid local volunteers gradually gave way to salaried municipal departments once steam-powered pumping engines, too heavy and technical for casual volunteer crews, became the standard firefighting equipment in growing cities; the shift to professional, publicly funded departments was largely complete by the century's end.

Similar neighbourhood-based fire-watch systems also existed earlier still in the Byzantine Empire, though far less is recorded about how they were funded or organised than about their later counterparts elsewhere.

List of Time Periods and Places A. Ancient Rome B. Song-dynasty China C. 17th-century London D. 19th-century United States E. the Byzantine Empire

The following statements describe developments in the history of firefighting. Match each statement with the correct option, A–E. NB You may use any option more than once.

1. Fire brigade crews were organised and funded at the neighbourhood level, with each watchtower's team responsible only for fires within its own district.
2. A fire brigade fined property owners for storing flammable materials in breach of building regulations.
3. Companies operating fire brigades issued customers a mark to display on their walls to show they were insured.
4. Volunteer fire crews were replaced by salaried municipal departments once steam-powered pumping engines became standard.
5. Firefighters were recruited mainly from among freed slaves and organised into cohorts stationed around the city.
6. A network of continuously staffed watchtowers allowed a fire's location to be signalled to the nearest brigade within minutes.
7. New heavy, technical equipment made it impractical for casual, unpaid crews to continue operating effectively.