§§ 720-722]  Consolidation of Fire Departments,          339

Fire commissioner; salary.

§ 720. The head of the fire department shall be the fire commis¬
sioner.    He shall be appointed by the mayor and hold office as pro¬
vided in chapter four of this act.    The salary of the fire commis¬
sioner shall be seven thousand five hundred dollars a year.
See § 105, ante.

Deputies.

§ 721. The fire commissioner shall appoint a deputy commis¬
sioner, who shall be seated at the office of the fire department In the
borough of Brooklyn, through whom such business, duties and
powers of the fire department in the boroughs of Brooklyn and
Queens shall be conducted, performed and exercised, as may be
directed by the fire commissioner.

Consolidation of departments; volunteer departments.

§ 722. The officers and members of the uniformed force and
legally appointed firemen in the corporation formerly known as the
mayor, aldermen and commonalty of The City of New York, and in
the city of Brooklyn and in the city of Long Island City, are herebv
made members of the fire department of The City of New York, as
hereby constituted, and shall be assigned to duty therein by the fire
commissioner, with the rank and grade now held by them, respect¬
ively, as nearly as may be practicable. The paid fire department sys¬
tem shall, as soon as practicable, be extended over the boroughs of
Queens and Richmond, by the fire commissioner, and thereupon
the present volunteer fire departments now maintained therein shall
be disbanded. Any real property and likewise any apparatus,
equipment or other personal property owned or used by said volun¬
teer forces which may be deemed useful or necessary for the use
of the fire department, shall, upon the extension of the paid system
to the boroughs of Queens and Richmond, respectively, be pur¬
chased by the fire commissioner at the reasonable value thereof. In
the meantime, and until the said paid fire department shall be
extended over said territory as herein provided, said volunteer fire
companies shall continue to discharge the duties for which they
have been associated or incorporated, and said companies shall
receive from the city such sums as are now awarded to them by the
villages or towns In which they are respectively located. When¬
ever hereafter the paid fire department shall be extended into any
part of the territory of The City of New York, as hereby constituted,
in which now or hereafter there shall exist a volunteer fire depart¬
ment, such members of said volunteer fire department in said locality