Incendiary Idea

The brand new, push-button telephones in the 26th-floor editorial offices overlooking Manhattan's Central Park are brilliant red. So is the floor --fire engine red. "I painted it myself," boasts Publisher Bartle Bull, 36, as he flips through, a stack of folders that are also, well, red. Bull, former publisher of the Village Voice, and Editor Dennis Smith, 35, fire fighter and bestselling author (Report from Engine Co. 82, The Final Fire), are ablaze with enthusiasm for their new monthly magazine. The scarlet letters on the charter issue due out Sept. 10 read Firehouse.

Firehouse aims at fire fighters and their families, retired firemen, and fire buffs--an estimated audience of 2 million. Says Smith, who still works 40 hours a week answering alarms at Coop City in The Bronx: "The magazines written for firemen are all technical. They do nothing to reinforce a fireman's positive image about himself." To change that, Smith decided to find a publisher and start his own magazine. A friend introduced him to Bull, who had wanted to get out of the Voice ever since New York magazine's Clay Felker took it over in 1974.

Hooked on Ladders. Taken by Smith's idea, Bull raised $500,000 from old Harvard classmates and other investors. He and Smith compiled a national mailing list (there was none for fire fighters) by cashing in on Smith's reputation as a firehouse folk hero. A letter went out to 30,000 fire chiefs asking them to send in the names of their men. The reward, an autographed copy of Engine Co. 82, brought in 133,000 names.

So far, 50,000 fire fighters and friends have signed up for Firehouse at $9.60 a year. Encouraged, Bull has ordered an initial press run of 75,000 for the 104-page charter issue, which contains an impressive 51 ad pages.

The magazine is hooked on ladders and sundry hot topics. Novelist James T. Farrell, 72, has contributed a moving story about the 1947 fire that destroyed much of his work-in-progress. Brooklyn Fire Fighter Michael Kearney rates fire helmets. Other stories focus on fire technology, fire medicine and firehouse cookery. Smith and his staff of ten plan to widen Firehouse's appeal with family features on travel and sports. But fire fighting will remain the heart of the magazine. Says Smith: "The writing has gotta be laconic, emotional, exciting. I like to see fire fighters in every story and know what they feel and think." The color photographs and art work will be vibrant with reds, yellows and burnt oranges because Smith wants "a reader to feel his adrenaline flowing when he picks up the magazine, just like a fire fighter does when he's putting out the flames."

Smith and Bull are one of the odder couples in publishing. Irish Catholic Smith grew up in a Manhattan tenement, quit school at 15 to deliver flowers, drive a cab, and rope cattle in Nevada--all the while writing poems and short stories. Eventually, he worked his way through New York University. A $7,500-a-year fireman 13 years ago, Smith is worth nearly $1 million today, thanks to book earnings and the sale of the movie rights for Engine Co. 82 to Paramount Pictures. He drives to the firehouse in a Mercedes and lives in a $130,000 house in suburban Garrison, but shuns the cocktail-party circuit.

Boulevardier Bull is a British-born blueblood whose father served in Parliament. Before buying into the Voice in 1969, Bull worked as a Wall Street lawyer and in 1968 managed the New York City presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy. He is now New York state campaign coordinator for Jimmy Carter. Bull has strewn cast-iron bulls around the Firehouse offices and wears a bull-studded tie. His favorite drink, natch, is the bullshot.

Old pros like George Hirsch, publisher of New Times magazine and former publisher of New York, think Smith and Bull are on target. Approves Hirsch: "Firehouse is the best of 40 new magazine ideas I have seen this year." Blue-Collar Expert Studs Terkel, author of Working, says: "I like the idea of a magazine that touches the lives of workers."

To firemen and buffs alike, Firehouse has the appeal of being their first magazine. Smith and Bull hope to stoke interest with future cover stories on arson, women in the fire service--and the passing of the red fire engine. The trend is toward lime yellow because it is more visible in traffic--meaning that Publisher Bull may soon be repainting his floor.

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