In July of 2010 a reporter from the Courier-Post newspaper, under the guise of "investigative reporting", wrote two long articles that attacked the moral integrity of members of the Camden Fire Department, and attacked the value of their work in terms of member's compensation, while omitting pertinent facts regarding said compensation.

I'm not going to lower myself to debate this person point-by-point; she obviously does not understand anything about what Fire, Police, and EMS personnel have to deal with on a daily basis in the City of Camden, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if there was a certain amount of jealousy.... after all, I'm sure this reporter picked up a journalism degree or some such other diploma somewhere, and I doubt the Courier-Post pays all that well. OK, I'll admit I'm speculating. 

An example of what I will bet the reporter in question and 99.9% of the United States population has never gone through and never will have to go through occurred on the night of April 27, 1922 and was reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer the next day. Six firefighters were injured while attempting to rescue an 11 year-old boy from a burning building; a window rescue was impossible due to iron bars on the windows, which meant the firemen had to go in to the conflagration.

If there is any question of why a firefighter is worth what he or she is paid, the answer is below. It should also be noted that one of the six who were injured that night, William Merrigan, died in the line of duty while fighting another blaze, the Hollingshead Fire, in July of 1940. 

Many of the photographs on this website are from the limited edition book "Fire Department Camden NJ 125 Anniversary 1869-1994" and were taken by Department Photographer Bob Bartosz. Others are courtesy of Joel Bain of the Camden Fire Department. More recent photos were taken by Phil Cohen.