Fire Engines Photos

J-P. Do you know if there are other examples of this ladder in use in other parts of France? I know Colmar hung on to their elderly and rather old-fashioned Renault Galion/Gugumus 18 metre mechanical ladder for a very long time, so they must have really liked it, but it seems a lot of other French fire services dropped them in favor of regular 15 meter extension ladders carried on conventional pumpers.

Added by Rob Johnson on 30 June 2023.

Rob, Very good question, I know the following cities using similar motorised or manual escape ladders: in the Marne dep 51, North dep 59, Marseille 13, Caen 14, Selestat 67. Nancy having now a skylift-robot and Strasbourg is considering to acquire one.

Added by Jacques PETER on 02 July 2023.

Thanks I really wondered as we had not seen much evidence of them in recent years. As you probably already know, the very widespread and extremely popular 15 and occasionally 18 meter British wheeled ladders died out very rapidly in the 1970s and 80s - after nearly a hundred years - and have not been used at all since. The original ones were stationed at locations staffed by only one firefighter, who called on members of the public to help push the ladder to the fire! These were only 12 meters, and when they were first mounted on horse drawn carts on the 1890s, the third extension was added.

The first British motor fire engine to carry one was introduced by Merryweather in 1904, but for many years after that until the late 1920s it was quite uncommon for the truck carrying the ladder to have a pump or water tank - just like in France!

By the 1930s the so-called “pump escape” was the standard first due fire engine in most British fire stations, except for rural towns and villages.

Added by Rob Johnson on 02 July 2023.

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