It was one of those suffocating hot days in August 1935. The summer sun stood mercilessly over Tehran, beating down on the city with an intensity that seemed to silence even the wind. In those years, Tehran had no air conditioners, no electric fans in every home, and no mechanical cooling systems that modern life has since made indispensable. People relied instead on age-old remedies: the thick shade of sycamore trees that lined the old gardens, the underground coolness of qanats, and the splashing waters of shallow canals that flowed through alleys. Children jumped into streams to cool their sunburned skin, while the elders sought shade in the teahouses or under the vaulted bazaars.
In this city—half ancient, half struggling toward modernity—an Ettelaat newspaper reporter set out on assignment. His destination: the “Municipal Fire Department,” a name new to most citizens. The reporter’s purpose was clear—to bring back for readers an account of the men and machines who had been entrusted with a task unfamiliar to the capital until recently: fighting fire with discipline, science, and technology.
The year was 1935, or 1314 in the solar Hijri calendar. Reza Shah Pahlavi was pressing forward with his ambitious program of modernization: new roads, new schools, railways, uniforms, and institutions. Among the many innovations of that period was something Tehran had desperately needed for decades—a professional firefighting corps.
