Vintage Fire Truck: White 1918

My family was recently out to visit me. They live in Norway (cold country, next to Sweden ... invented the paper clip.... you get the picture), so we try to find things to show them when they come out. This time, we had an opportunity to show them the Travel Town museum @ Griffith Park.

I have been there before and I wrote a blog about their 1918 Mack dump truck that they have there. (If you missed it, you can see it here, it's a pretty neat truck). Well, I was so focused on the Mack that time that I completely missed the equally vintage 1918 White fire truck that was standing in the corner.
I spotted it this time, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me. Luckily my brother, the photographer, came to the rescue and snapped some shots of the fire truck for me. (Unfortunately my brother isn't as passionate about this truck as me, so I may return with more detailed photos of this truck later, if I happen to go back to the musem....) (PS. He got some very good shots of the trains though .... maybe if I feel like doing a non-truck blog at some point, I'll share a few :))

Anyway, this 1918 truck is a fire truck that was built by the White Company. At the time they were one of the foremost truck builders in the country. The truck was used by Shell to carry equipment such as hoses, ladders and fire extinguishers, to the scene of a fire. There was a large chemical tank underneath the driver's seat, and water would be pumped through this tank, thereby adding chemicals to the water itself, which would then be more efficient in extinguishing fires.
The truck was used to fight fires in Santa Fe Springs, Huntington Beach and Long Beach oil fields that were owned by Shell.

Here are some photos of the truck, and like I said, I will bring my camera should opportunity present itself once more for me to go out there, and take some more detailed photos.

A view from the driver's seat.

A glimpse of the tire... quite different from what you see on firetrucks today.

Here's a photo of a photo of the White fire truck ;-) (Along with the description, which is where I got my info about the truck from...)

Sideview of the firetruck

Sideview of the firetruck

A view of the grill

Another view of the grill

I love these old trucks, if anybody has tips or info on other vintage trucks, feel free to alert me! :-)

Big Rig of the Week - New Toy for the Upland Fire Department!

We were out running errands around town today, when my eyes veered off the road and on to a bright red fire truck it its ladder pointing about 100 feet skyward.
The eye candy was strategically placed along the side of the road to draw attention to the firemen who were walking up and down among the cars stopped at the traffic lights. Each fireman was holding a boot, taking donations for Jerry's Kids, a charity dedicated to kids suffering from Muscular Dystrophy.

(For more information on this check out http://www.mda.org/telethon/ , or you can Google "Fill the Boot" campaign and read more about this particular charity....)

I didn't have my camera with me, ironically enough since I ALWAYS have my camera in my truck, just incase a fancy big rig should happen to catch my eye. So we decided to go home so I could get my camera, and at the same time we fetched our jar of coins and poured all the change into a bag. If these firemen wanted full boots, then by george, who are we to stop them from achieving their goal?
We drove back down to the firetrucks, at this point I was probably drooling a little.
Sure the truck had caught my attention from afar, but up close, it was just beautiful!
We handed our bag of coins to the fire captain and he told us that the truck was brand new and is not even in service yet. They had borrowed it for the weekend, just so they could draw some attention to their charity event, but the truck was due to be returned back to the factory for more upgrades and finishing touches before Upland can become its home for good.

The truck is a Pierce fire TRUCK. The ones we normally call "fire trucks" are infact only a fire ENGINE. This particular truck is actually a TRUCK, which is a first for Upland. The photo below to the left is an engine... which is basically an engine attached to 4 wheels... The photo below to the right is a truck...which is an actual truck / bob tail if you will, hauling a "trailer"... in this case I guess it would be the ladder and all the fire equipment.















Representatives from the fire department have been involved in the design of the fire truck, having made several visits to the Pierce factory in Appleton, Wisconsin to make their input regarding features, whistles & bells for this new truck.
One of the custom features they got is the red banner on the ladder with the gold leafed Upland Fire logo.

The ladder can support 1 firefighter per section, as well as 2 firefighters at the very top of the ladder. Normally, a 100 foot ladder can only support 1 fireman. The structure and design of this truck allow for several men to be on the ladder at once, which needless to say will make it much easier and more efficient to rescue people and bring them down the ladder.

Below are a few photos of the truck.... If you want to see more, you can visit:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Laila.Roknian/UplandFireNewFireTruck