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About the author
Donald Whitney retired as a lieutenant from the Portland Fire Department and serves as Portland Fire Museum curator. He is an adjunct professor at Southern Maine Community College, Fire Science Department, teaching the history course Fire in American Society, "? which he developed. He has authored four books on the Portland Fire Department and has written for national trade magazines. Michael Daicy has been a Portland firefighter since 1983. He has been assigned at Engine Company No. 11 in the East Deering section of the city, where he has served for the last twenty years. Michael has done extensive research on the Portland Fire Department's history. Since 1989, he has been appointed by four fire chiefs as the official department historian. He has built an extensive fire department historical database and produced numerous articles for magazines, newspapers and other publications, which included a 1994 commemorative book on the department. He has also served as editor of the fire department's annual report since 1997. The text of Portland's Greatest Conflagration is heavily weighted by these cited works. Daicy's family genealogy includes Rufus King, one of the signers of the Constitution, and Maine's first governor, William King. Also, Michael has three ancestors who were Portland firemen in the mid-nineteenth century and may have assisted in fighting this great conflagration."
