No Fires In This Kitchen

Learning to cook is an occupational requirement for men who work in 24-hour shifts. Ann Arbor's new central fire station has a kitchen designed to meet the demands of even these exciting chefs.

No fires in this kitchen

By Catherine Arcure

NEWS FOOD COLUMNIST

Roy Desot and John Gauge of television "Emergency" fame have made real heroes out of firemen and paramedics.

It's too bad the script writers didn't come and talk to Fred Schmid, Ann Arbor's fire chief, or some of his firemen at the new main fire station on Huron and Fifth. They could have filled them in on real heroics, real drama . . . the life and death situations faced by Ann Arbor firemen on a day-to-day basis.

BUT WHAT SCHMID and his staff are most anxious to talk about now is not their heroics but the new fire station into which they moved a little more than a month ago — how it's made thier jobs easier; how functional it is; how hard it is to imagine they were as efficient as they were in the old station built almost one hundred years ago.

Lots of things about the new station, designed by Ann Arbor architect Richard Fry, appeal to the firemen — their quarters, their incredibly quick access to trucks when an alarm goes off, the design of the building that allows them a speedy exit into traffic, getting them en route to answering an alarm in split seconds. Lots of things make the men very happy about their new home.

Among the happiest changes in the move from old to new fire station is the design and planning of their kitchen, a focal point for life in the station for the firefighters and paramedics between alarms.

YOU CAN'T HELP but be reassured that Ann Arbor's firefighters are all business when you see them reacting instantaneously when an alarm goes off. But in between these alarms (usually a minimum of 12 in an average day), life centers around the activity of the second floor kitchen where two firemen a day are selected to prepare the meals for the 20 to 23 men on the 24-hour shift.

These two men (different ones have the responsibility each day) are named each morning by the platoon leader. They determine how many men are on duty for the day and decide the menu they'll prepare. Once that's decided, they check their pantry ad refrigerator (each of the three platoons has its own refrigerator and pantry and the responsibility for stocking both). Then, shopping list in tow, the two are off to purchase the rest of the ingredients they'll need fort eh day's specialties.

Money for these daily groceries come from a kitty the men set up each pay day. Each person puts in $12 every two weeks. "That lets us eat pretty well," Schmid says, "although sometimes at the end of the second week, the men have to settle for hot dogs."

"THE MEN LEARN to cook," says Schmid, adding that "if they don't, they take a lot of heckling." In fact, he says, noting not only the cooking expertise of many of the men but the immaculate condition in which they keep the station, "Most firemen make awfully good housewives!"

Specialties include lots of casseroles — a braised beef served with Parmesan cheese over noodles is a dinner Schmid's son, who is also a member of the force, prepares handily. By necessity, many of the meals are ones that can be left to cook without lots of attention or without the danger of burning if unattended, the men admit, making asides that it wouldn't do to be called from one fire to put out another they'd caused at their own station!

The design of the kitchen-dining area, complete with eye-catching graphics, includes not only a large commercial stove, three red-orange refrigerators, dishwasher and microwave (used often to reheat meals if the men answer an alarm in the midst of a meal), but also plenty of cupboard space and clean, clear work areas. 

Chief Schmid says the cupboard and pantry space architect Fry designed into the kitchen has been a God-send. "In the old fire station we had dishes stored everywhere, even in the stove, any place there was an empty space. It's so good to have a place to work and a place to store things."

THE KITCHEN-DINING area, designed by Fry to be a "comfortable home away from home for the men who spend a good part of their week here," still has its clear reminders that the real business here is fighting fires. At the end of the long dining table is one of many brass poles in the building, providing a quick exit from dining are to the floor below where the fire trucks and emergency vehicles are poised, ready for action.

The cooking accomplishments of the firemen have been a relatively quiet matter until the colossal snow-in this winter when the men cooked and served nearly 700 meals in a three day period to extra on-duty police and firemen, emergency personnel and city workers who wer on the job helping the community get through the winter crisis.

Fireman Bruce Schmidt — on his way to a fire or trying to escape clean-up?