The Bulletin (San Francisco) (May 27, 1916):

"A chantey is a song sung by the sailors to the rhythm of their work....The majority of men in San Francisco in the early fifties, had some experience at sea, either having shipped before the mast or as passengers on the long voyages from the Isthmus and around the Horn....It was the sailors who introduced the chantey into the fire department, to be sung especially at the laborious task of pumping water by hand.
   
"I give here a chantey which was sung by all the [volunteer fire] companies....

"Santa Ana is dead and gone,
   Hurrah, Santa Ana!
Oh, we won our day at Monterey,
   All on the plain [sic] of Mexico.
Oh, Mexico and Texas, too,
   Hurrah, Santa Ana!
I wouldn't be Santy's [sic] son you know,
   All on the plains of Mexico."

The writer then gives fourteen topical stanzas, each related to one of the fourteen volunteer fire companies, e.g., "No. 5 Is always alive," "No, 6 Is a bully set of bricks," etc.

A few years ago Gibb posted a similar report of firemen singing chanteys in New Orleans, specifically "Fire Down Below."