In steam railroading, a fireman or a boiler man 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 there is a proper supply of fuel for the engine aboard 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.
