Other Definitions
fireman (dict)
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FiremanThe term Fireman can refer to: A Firefighter. Traditionally, the term fireman denoted a person who was supposed to fight fires. Now the gender-neutral term firefighter is preferably used. In steam railroading, a fireman was the designation for someone whose job it was to tend the fire for running the steam engine of a locomotive. This job designation was also used by saw mills and other occupations which used steam engines and required somebody to tend the fire. Often much of the job was hard physical labor, such as shoveling coal into the engine's burner. Steam locomotive firemen were also usually responsible for cleaning the ash and dust from the burner prior to lighting the fire, adding water to the engine's boiler, making sure the a proper supply of fuel for the engine is on board before starting journeys, starting the fire, raising or banking the fire as appropriate for the amount of power needed along particular parts of the route, and performing other tasks for maintaining the locomotive according to the orders of the locomotive engineer. Some firemen served these duties as a form of apprenticeship, aspiring to be locomotive engineers themselves. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, a fireman is a person who's job it was to start fires to burn banned books. Since paper ignites at 451 degrees F, the title of the book therefore suggests the burning of paper. Fire Man is also a Robot Master from the Mega Man series of action-platformers, written with a space to avoid confusion.
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