So in response to complaints, officials from the North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue have decided that firefighters will no longer be allowed to leave the firehouse for meals or grocery shopping.
"Another day at the firehouse while preparing a meal, somebody started a conversation about weightlifting," Mr. Todd said.
To be sure, razzing is as much a part of firehouse life as communal meals and the shattering peal of alarm bells.
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said last week that the fight at least partially stemmed from the close confines of firehouse living, where shared meals and sleeping quarters can lead to a boiling over of sibling-like relationships fueled by constant ribbing and full of all the tensions, personal feuds and intense competition of any family ties.
While the other men spent more and more time together -- searching at ground zero, eating all their meals at the firehouse, drinking at P.D. O'Hurley's nearby -- Shea spent less and less time at the house.
They spoke of him as a connoisseur of Italian food who would cook an Italian meal every week at the firehouse.
JONAH COHEN, 59, the senior member of the West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire and Ambulance Corps in southern Queens, sat in the back of an ambulance parked in his firehouse and tore open a military-style instant meal.
Everybody, Firefighter McCann included, pulled on their coats and boots and jumped onto the truck, pulling out of the firehouse on West 43rd Street and leaving the meal-in-progress behind.
Or, to give another example, if you are packing your own bleak little white bread and corned beef sandwiches to take to work with you every day between now and the 31st, your average FTSE 100 CEO has already earned enough to eat a slap-up meal with drinks, dessert, and a generous tip at the Chiltern Firehouse every single day for the rest of the year by about 10 AM this morning.
Columbia Fire House, a working firehouse, is also the setting for a monthly yoga and brunch, at which Ms. Cohen teaches a vinyasa yoga class before the meal.
