“But do they ever think of what firefighters do and their lives?”
Newton is the curator of the “Art of Fire” show, which includes the work of 22 photographers, including 10 Chronicle staff photographers.
The oldest photograph, taken by Fred Lyon in 1948, is of a blaze aboard a Swedish freighter at the old Islais Creek dock. The most recent is of the huge fire at 29th and Mission streets this summer that destroyed a hardware store and a restaurant and displaced 58 residents and a total of nine businesses.
The pictures are dramatic, some more than others. There is one Newton took of firefighters battling a blaze in the Marina District just after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The flames leap up, of course, but it is unusual in that the hoses are manned by young people from the neighborhood, civilians who volunteered to help.
Newton took that picture just before he joined the Fire Department. He was a photographer living in the city and was interested in the fire service. When he heard of the Marina fire, he grabbed his camera and jumped on his bicycle. So the two interests joined.
“I’ve worked at several of the fires here,” he said.
One picture, taken by Mike Kepka, a Chronicle photographer at the time, was of Newton. “I looked at that, and said, ‘Who is that guy?’” He was amazed to discover himself in the photos.
Close to half of the images in the show are by news photographers, assigned to cover breaking events. But some are totally unplanned.
Michael Mustacchi, a well-known commercial photographer, was driving back from another job one Saturday night when he saw a big cloud of black smoke. It was St. Paulus Lutheran Church, an old example of a wooden carpenter’s Gothic style. Mustacchi caught the steeple, burning like a torch, a firefighter on a long ladder, silhouetted against the flames.
One of Newton’s favorites is of firefighters outlined against flames on top of a roof on Folsom Street five years ago.
A man named Jesse Smith took it. Smith said he was on his way somewhere else — to a photo show, he thinks — when he saw the fire.
He was interested in the fire service at the time, so he took the shot. “My career has taken another direction,” he said. Now he’s a farmer. But the photo speaks for itself.
“What it shows is a fire just bursting loose,” Newton said. “Those firefighters have to get off that roof immediately. You see how the fire is in front of them.”
It is a scene that firefighters both dread and look forward to, he said. The fire is alive, and it is moving.
“The term for firefighters is that it is rolling. The fire is rolling,” he said. “You think, ‘Wow, look at that. It’s fantastic. The shapes, and color. It’s fantastic and I’m going in there.’ You have to go in there and destroy it. That’s your job.”
But there is a price, too. “The untold story is what is happening in our profession,” said retired fire Capt. Tony Stefani. “There has been a big jump in cancer rates among firefighters.”
He cited a survey of San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia firefighters. “It’s a shocking eye-opener.” he said.
The show is co-sponsored by the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation and will be featured at a gala next spring to draw attention to firefighters and cancer.
Carl Nolte is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf
‘The Art of Fire’
When: Opens with a reception from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Saturday night and continues until Oct. 17.
Where: Harvey Milk Photo Center in Duboce Park, 50 Scott St., S.F. www.harveymilkphotocenter.org/
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/In-Art-of-Fire-photo-exhibit-creativity-9228243.php#photo-10937335
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