More Than a T-Shirt: Why Firehouse Shirt Club Started

Firehouse shirts have been part of the fire service for generations. They’re traded between crews, picked up while traveling, collected from departments across the country and around the world, and held onto long after they’re too worn to wear.

For those outside the fire service, it’s a shirt. For those inside it, the shirt represents a house, a crew, a story, and a piece of fire-service history.

In 2011, former Dallas firefighter Jim Scano took that long-standing tradition and built a new way for firefighters and fans of the fire service to experience it: Firehouse Shirt Club.

We sat down with Jim to talk about where the idea came from, why firehouse shirts have always meant more than what’s printed on them, and what he hopes members discover when they open that package every month.

Take us back to the beginning. Where did the idea for Firehouse Shirt Club come from?

JIM SCANO: The idea really came from something that’s always been part of the fire service: collecting and trading firehouse shirts. You’d visit another station, meet guys from another department, go to a conference or travel somewhere, and come home with a shirt. But it was hit or miss. You might pick up one or two a year, if that.

I thought, how can I make this easier? There was an opportunity to take that tradition and do something different with it. Instead of someone having to travel around the country to discover these firehouses, what if I could bring a different firehouse to them every month? That’s really where Firehouse Shirt Club started.

So the idea wasn’t necessarily about starting a T-shirt company?

JIM SCANO: No, not at all. The T-shirt is the vehicle, but the firehouse traditions and stories have always been the important part.

There are thousands of firehouses out there, and every one of them has its own identity. You have houses with nicknames that go back generations. You have logos and mascots with stories behind them. Some firehouses have traditions that have been passed from one crew to the next for decades. It all lives on the shirts firefighters wear.

The T-shirts are something you can actually wear and collect, but what you’re really getting is a little piece of that firehouse.

Why firehouse T-shirts? What does a department shirt represent inside the fire service that someone outside of it might not understand?

JIM SCANO: Firefighters take a lot of pride in where they work. Your department, your crew, and your house matter. The shirt is one of the ways that pride gets represented.

And then there’s the trading side of it. As a firefighter, I found that guys would trade shirts with other firefighters. You might never have worked in New York or Boston or some small department halfway across the country, but you’ve got one of their shirts because you met somebody from that house.

There’s usually a story attached to how you got it. That’s something people outside the fire service may not completely understand. They see a cool T-shirt and ask, “Where did you get that?” You remember where it came from.

What did those early days look like behind the scenes? Was there a moment when you thought, “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

JIM SCANO: When I first started, there were a lot of outbound phone calls. They went something like, “Hi, my name is Jim Scano. I’m a firefighter-paramedic with Dallas Fire-Rescue. Trust me with your artwork, and I promise I’ll send you a check.”

Nobody knew who I was. I had to earn their trust, and those first couple of years were hard. Like most startups, you hit a point where you ask yourself if this is even worth it. But I had subscribers, so I knew there was something there. I just had to stick with it.

Now we’ve got stations submitting their own artwork to be featured, and we have a waitlist.

Was there a moment when you realized Firehouse Shirt Club had become more than a subscription service? What happened?

JIM SCANO: I can’t point to one specific moment. Over time, we’ve just been able to make bigger and bigger impacts.

The first really significant one was the Firehouse Overhaul we did at Houston Station 45 in 2020. We completely redid their media room. Think “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” but for a fire station. That was a special project for me. It took an enormous amount of work, not just the few days we were in Houston, but all the time and resources leading up to it.

We couldn’t have pulled it off without our creative director, Capt. Eric Daniels, and a couple of other McKinney firefighters, Curtis Bell and Luke Dixon. Those guys were instrumental in getting it done. You can see the whole project at FirehouseOverhaul.com.

Do you remember the first department you featured?

JIM SCANO: Yes. It was Dallas Station 11. When I launched FSC, I had no idea how it was going to go or how many shirts I’d need. So I picked a station close by that I knew sold shirts out of their closet.

As new members signed up, I’d drive down and buy more Station 11 shirts. Obviously, there was no profit in doing it that way, but it also meant I had basically zero startup cost. I’m still very thankful for my friends down at Station 11.

Firehouse Shirt Club has always kept the featured firehouse a surprise. Why?

JIM SCANO: That is a huge part of it. We don’t want you to pick a shirt because you already know the department. We want you to open the package and say, “I’ve never heard of these guys. What’s their story?”

One month it might be a historic company from a major city, like FDNY or Chicago. The next month it could be a firehouse in a small community you’ve never even heard of.

Sure, the big historic houses have a wow factor. But it’s all firehouses, all family. That’s what we want people to see. There are incredible firehouses and incredible traditions everywhere in the fire service. The surprise gives us a chance to introduce you to them.

Part of every month goes back to the featured station. Why is that important to you?

JIM SCANO: Well, it’s their artwork. Firehouse Shirt Club is just a vehicle that helps them sell more shirts in a month than they’d likely sell in a year. We’re a system for them to showcase their artwork and raise a little money while doing it.

Not to mention, since I’ve been out of the fire service, this selfishly gives me a way to stay connected to an industry I truly care about.

Of all the departments, shirts, and firefighters you’ve encountered through FSC, is there one story that has stayed with you? Why?

JIM SCANO: The most memorable, and most improbable, happened just recently. Our featured firehouse for May 2026 was Boston Rescue 2. On May 23, Rescue 2 lost one of their own in the line of duty, firefighter Robert “BK” Kilduff Jr.

I remember getting the message from our creative director, Capt. Daniels. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. My heart dropped. First, it was just absolutely tragic. Second, the odds of that happening during the exact month we were featuring that house were one in never.

Eric and I knew immediately we had to do something. He reached out to our contact at Rescue 2 and simply said, “We’re here if you need anything.” They were open to us helping with a fundraising shirt for the family. Eric jumped on it and knocked it out of the park. Within days, he’d created a beautiful memorial shirt, and we put it online.

I remember watching the store from home with orders coming in every minute. By the end of the first day, we had 1,406 orders. By the end of the two-week fundraiser, we had 3,356. On July 29, I hand-delivered a check for over $80,000 to the Rescue 2 association, earmarked for the Kilduff family. They were holding a special lunch that day with current and retired Rescue 2 members. What an amazing and emotional experience.

Once again, it wasn’t our doing. The people who support what we do are the ones who truly showed up. We were just the vehicle.

If someone says, “It’s just a T-shirt,” what do you think they’re missing about the connection, tradition and story behind wearing another firehouse’s shirt?

JIM SCANO: For me, it comes down to camaraderie.

The fire service is facing a lot of challenges these days. Recruitment, tighter budgets, a longer list of policies, and the job itself isn’t getting any easier. I believe there are a few things that pull people into the fire service: the excitement, the challenge, and the sense of belonging.

A lot of what happens in the fire service is beyond anyone’s control. But the one thing you can control is that sense of belonging. The camaraderie. If camaraderie is a crew sitting around the kitchen table, then the house’s artwork or logo is the centerpiece.

For any administrators reading this, it’s such an easy thing to allow and encourage, and it pays dividends. Give your people something to identify with. Something they create and want to be a part of.

Finish this sentence: “Firehouse Shirt Club is more than a T-shirt because …”

JIM SCANO: … Every one of them comes from a real firehouse that represents a real crew, and part of every shirt goes back to the men and women of that crew.