Burn It Down

Stories of people who decide the only way forward — for real change — is to burn everything to the ground. Prologue: The Amsterdam Fire Department has a very surprising sensitivity training video called “The Incident with the Helmet." (5 minutes) A Policeman Burns Down the Firehouse: A strongman gets hired to take over the Amsterdam Fire Department. He’s a career police officer named Leen Schaap who has zero firefighting experience. That does not go over so well. Joanna Kakissis reports the story. (42 minutes) Mom. Hey Mom. MOM. Hey Mom. Mom. Mom: A teenage girl decides the only way forward is to tear something down and rebuild from the ground up. Elna Baker explains. A version of this story appears on getmortified.com (8 minutes)