Fire Engines Photos

Strictly speaking, this is not a pumper. It is actually a "chemical engine", described by ALF at the time as a "chemical and hose car", because it had a hose bed for 2.5 inch firefighting hose in addition to its two "chemical" tanks.

These two 40 gallon tanks can be seen beneath and behind the seat cushion, along with the handwheels used for activating the soda acid mixture to pressurize the system, and the discharge manifold and gauges.

The tank behind the seat back is the gravity-feed gasolene tank. Triple combination pumpers, which had the pump under the seat, also had their chemical tank located above the hose box, just behind the gas tank.

These chemical and hose cars were the first due engines in a typical "two-piece" engine company. The crew dropped the 2.5 inch hose at a hydrant and proceeded to the fire, where they used the water in the "chemical" tanks to attack the fire.

The second due engine was a pumper. It connected to the hydrant, usually using suction hoses, hooked up the 2.5 inch line and supplied the chemical engine, and/or one or more hoselines - using a wye connection if necessary. One or more additional hose lines could then be laid out from the pumper if needed.

With few exceptions, the famous US two-piece engine company has now died out. Interestingly, the main reason it disappeared was the introduction of a British invention - which was never used in Britain - the Angus Fire Armour "Black Angus" 5 inch hydrant supply hose. This allowed the first due pumper to both access a distant hydrant and use its booster line and built-in tank for initial attack.

Added by Rob Johnson on 26 September 2013.

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