Incorporated in 1786, the town of Hamden covers nearly 33 square miles immediately north of New Haven, Connecticut. Despite significant industrial growth in the early 19th century and several devastating fires, Hamden had no organized firefighting forces until its first volunteer fire company was organized in 1896. By 1925, the handful of independent volunteer fire companies that followed became the Hamden Fire Department. A predominantly volunteer force before World War II, the department grew to 55 career members by 1950 and to 124 by the mid-1980s. The ascendency of emergency medical services and, more recently, a concern for homeland security have greatly expanded the department's role in public safety. Although 1990s municipal austerity measures reduced department size by 20 percent, with a population today exceeding 60,000, fire department responses have increased to more than 10,000 calls annually, of which 74 percent are for EMS.

Admire heroes at work every day of the year with this 16-month wall calendar filled with incredible on-scene photography of fire trucks in the heat of action. Curated by noted fire truck photographer and expert Larry Shapiro, Fire Trucks in Action 2024 features heart-racing portraits of real firefighters doing their jobs. Each 17" × 12" calendar image is accompanied by an informative caption that details the vehicles pictured, location, and the firefighters’ emergency response. A convenient page shows the months of September, October, November, and December 2023, followed by individual pages for the months of 2024. Long-time fire truck buff and photographer Larry Shapiro is your guide to the hero-making world of firefighting.

The Wallingford tornado of 1878 took less than two minutes, but it killed at the rate of one person per second. Twisters in Connecticut are incredibly rare, but they're often disastrous and sometimes deadly. The Windsor tornado of 1979 destroyed a field of aircraft that had survived World War II. The 1787 Wethersfield tornado ripped off a barn roof in New Britain, traveled on to Newington and finally subsided in Wethersfield after destroying a family farm. Locals remember the 1989 cyclone that ripped through Hamden and cost the state millions of dollars in repairs. Join local author Robert Hubbard as he shares the tales of these natural disasters and those who witnessed them.

This analysis sought to identify trends in mortality and examine relationships among data elements. To this end, data were collected on firefighter fatalities between 1990 and 2000. (For further information, see the "Methodology" section or the Appendix.) Using this analysis, better targeted prevention strategies can be developed in keeping with the USFA's goal to reduce firefighter deaths 25 percent by 2005. In contrast to the annual USFA firefighter fatality reports, this analysis allowed for comparisons over time to determine any changes in firefighter mortality, with a depth of scrutiny not present in earlier analyses.