“BURN” Documentary Spotlights Abandoned Building Controversy
The documentary that many believed would never be finished finally premiered this week.
BURN: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit first premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival in New York on Tuesday with more film dates scheduled throughout the week.
The newest trailer for the documentary recently played at FDIC, where Director/Producers Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez lead a Q& A about the film. Famed actor and “Rescue Me” star Denis Leary also contributed to the documentary as executive producer along with Jim Serpico, who co-founded the production company Apostle with Leary.
Putman and Sanchez followed the members of Engine Company 50 on Detroit’s East Side as they served their community. They used helmet-mounted cameras to see from the perspective of the firefighters as they put their lives on the line, but the most interesting part of the story is told through the interviews with crew members.
As you get to know the crew, you see how they deal with the problems common to all fire departments, but on an extreme scale that is no longer sustainable. Despite the bleak odds in as fire calls increase and budgets decrease, the message of the documentary is clear: the community keeps Detroit strong, and that is always worth saving.
Detroit has one of the highest reported arson rates per capita in the country. Firefighter Frank Dombrowski was quoted in the documentary’s trailer saying, “Ninety-five percent of what I do is arson… very rarely do we have a legitimate fire.”
This isn’t surprising considering the high number of foreclosed and abandoned homes in the Motor City area.
This issue also made national headlines earlier this week when Detroit’s Executive Fire Commissioner Donald Austin said that allowing abandoned buildings to burn to the ground is one option to consider in the face of a 15% budget cut.
The proposed plan would allow some vacant buildings to burn if they're more than 50% consumed, but only if the fire does not threaten inhabited structures and weather conditions are favorable. These structures often cost more to tear down or salvage than they are worth, so allowing them to burn may be an affordable, albeit desperate, solution.
This idea raises controversy because many abandoned homes and buildings may be providing shelter to homeless individuals or even families. However, abandoned structures pose a greater risk to firefighters because they are often left in dilapidated conditions with a higher chance of collapse.
The case of Walter P. Harris, a 17-year veteran for the Detroit Fire Department who was killed when the roof collapsed during an abandoned house fire in November of 2008, exemplified this risk in the documentary’s extended trailer. The fire that killed Harris was also reported as intentionally set.
To learn more about the BURN documentary or make a tax-deductible donation to the project, visit the Official Burn website at http://detroitfirefilm.org .
What do you think of the documentary? Should fire departments allow abandoned buildings burn to cut costs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.