About Us

Dave  Houseal was raised in a family of Harrisburg firefighters; his granddad  and great uncles began riding fire apparatus pulled by horses.  His  father and uncles fought the "red devil" from the 30's into the 60's,  all proud members of the old Citizen Engine No. 3.  Grandpa went career  with the HFD during the Great Depression and retired as Fire Chief in  1967. Dave was the second Houseal to serve the City of Harrisburg as a  career fireman.  For over 50 years the Progress Fire Company, in  suburban Harrisburg, was also led by three generations of Houseal's with  Dave "retiring" in 1985 as Fire Chief. 

At  an early age, Dave began his love of reading everything from comic  books and Mad magazines to railroad periodicals and fire service  publications.  This led to his passion for history and research amassing  several file cabinets filled with incident reports, newspaper articles  and individual stories of the Central Pa fire service.  Having  written  two soft cover publications in the 90's, one of Dave's bucket-list goals  was to "get published" with a hard cover book.  Knowing nothing of the  publishing industry, he befriended Dennis Campbell of dmcfirebooks  during the early Fire Expo's held in Harrisburg.  Dennis had built a  small publishing company with an express niche in the fire service for  story books, "written by firefighters for firefighters."  In 2005,  dmcfirebooks debuted Dave's first work: We Can See It From The Bridge.  Two more followed in 2008 and 2011. 

Sadly,  Dave's mentor and dear friend, Dennis Campbell passed in 2014 at a  young age. Still actively writing and with the beginning of several new  manuscripts in his computer, Dave with his wonderful and supportive  wife, Bonnie, made the decision to organize their own small publishing  firm and "self-publish" what they hope to become Dave's next books for  his reader fans.