WFRS Apparatus Histories
Old Engine 6’s Last Run
Old soldiers never die, it is said. But sadly — just like all worn-out passenger cars and trucks – most old fire engines are eventually hauled off to the junkyard.[…]
100 Years of Motorized Apparatus
An important historical milestone was passed in mid-April, 2014. It was exactly 100 years ago that the Windsor Fire Department placed into service its very first piece of motorized fire[…]
Rebuilding Engine No. 5
On August 31, 1963, the Windsor Fire Department’s Engine No. 5 – a 1952 Bickle-Seagrave 1050 gpm pumper – was extensively damaged in a collision with an automobile at the[…]
The Luverne Rescue Squad
It’s a long way from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to Canada’s southernmost city, but one of the more interesting rigs to see service with the Windsor Fire & Rescue Service made[…]
The Cafs Pumper
In late 1995, Windsor Fire & Rescue Services took delivery of a new triple combination pumper with a difference. Built by Carl Thibault Ltd. of Drummondville, Quebec on a Spartan[…]
Back to Red: 1993 Carl Thibault Pumper
In November, 1974, the Windsor Fire Department took delivery of its first lime-yellow rig – a 1050 IGPM pumper built by King-Seagrave Ltd of Woodstock, Ontario on a tilt-cab Ford[…]
The Saulsbury E.S.U.
During the summer of 2000, the Windsor Fire & Rescue Service took delivery of three new pieces of apparatus built by a well-known American fire apparatus manufacturer – Saulsbury Fire[…]
Windsor’s Mobile Command Posts
In the good old days, it wasn’t hard to find the Chief Engineer on the fireground — he was the commanding figure in the white helmet and coat, barking orders[…]
Windsor’s Early Hose Wagons
For more than 200 years, hose – that highly portable, flexible means of getting water onto the fire – has been the most important basic tool in the firefighter’s arsenal[…]
Thinking Small: The W.F.D.’S Magic Wagon
In November 1983, Chrysler Canada Ltd. launched production of a revolutionary new kind of passenger vehicle in its Windsor Assembly Plant. The first vehicles of their kind built in North[…]
Horses Versus Horsepower: 1911 Contest Pits Motor Fire Apparatus Against Horse-Drawn Rig
Just over 100 years ago, the Windsor Fire Department participated in an epochal contest that pitted a horse-drawn fire wagon against a fast- emerging rival — one of the new-fangled[…]
Windsor’s First Ladder Truck
When Windsor was incorporated in 1854, most of the buildings in the bustling little town on the Canadian shore of the Detroit River were no more than one or two[…]
Walkerville Motorizes
Swallowed up by the City of Windsor in the 1935 municipal amalgamation that also absorbed the former communities of Sandwich and East Windsor, the thriving, affluent Town of Walkerville was[…]
W.F.D. Headquarters, 1939
Sometime in late May of 1939, a photographer – his name lost to time — climbed to the roof of the bustling Windsor City Market on Pitt St. E. Looking[…]
The Chief’s Buggy, Part 2
As noted in Part 1, the Windsor Fire Department purchased its first station wagon in 1961. The steel-bodied, four-door 1961 Chevrolet wagon was much more versatile than a conventional coupe[…]
The Chief’s Buggy
Ever since horses replaced manpower to pull fire apparatus, the Chief Engineer – or Fire Chief in today’s vernacular — has traditionally sped to fires in his own special vehicle.[…]
The Suburbs – Riverside’s Rigs
In its half-century of existence the Riverside Fire Department utilized just four pieces of motor fire apparatus. The small volunteer fire department’s first motorized fire truck was a 1924 Ford[…]
W.F.D. “Television Stars” !
Windsor’s first television station – CKLW-TV – took to the airwaves in the fall of 1954. For many years Channel 9’s tall red-and-white-painted transmission tower behind the new TV station[…]
Windsor’s Four Menards
Well-known Windsor wagon maker Moise L. Menard began production of an automobile bearing his own name in 1908. Two years later Menard switched exclusively to truck production in his small[…]
Marine 1: Windsor’s Fireboat
With an extensive, heavily built up Detroit River shoreline, Windsor has, for more than a century, relied on neighboring Detroit when a fireboat was needed to battle a major waterfront[…]
1935 Annexation Transforms W.F.D.
On July 1, 1935 the City of Windsor annexed the neighboring towns of Walkerville, Sandwich and East Windsor. This historic amalgamation drastically altered the size and composition of the Windsor[…]
Windsor: City Of Roses and Rosenbauers!
With the delivery of three new pumpers earlier this year, the Rosenbauer name became the most prolific on the Windsor Fire & Rescue Services current apparatus roster. One of the[…]
Windsor’s Sutphen Towers
Clarence Sutphen founded his fire equipment sales business in Columbus, Ohio in 1890. Mr. Sutphen added motor fire apparatus to his wares when he became a sales agent for the[…]
A Century of “Sticks”
One hundred years ago, the Windsor Fire Department received its first aerial hook and ladder truck. Built by the W. E. Seagrave Fire Apparatus Company in neighboring Walkerville in 1910,[…]
Windsor’s Only Steam Fire Engine – 1868 Amoskeag
The introduction of the first successful steam fire engine in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1852 revolutionized firefighting in North America, precipitating as it did the replacement of often rowdy, politically powerful[…]
Windsor’s Civil Defense Pumpers
In the early 1950s – at the height of the Cold War scare – the Canadian federal and provincial Governments provided special funding to bolster the firefighting and rescue capabilities[…]
From Sandwich West
As noted in an earlier article, following the January 1, 1966 annexation of the former Town of Riverside and a portion of Sandwich West Township, the Windsor Fire Department acquired[…]
Ford City’s LaFrances
In the late summer of 1904 a bold, new industrial enterprise set up shop in the former Walkerville Wagon Works factory on Riverside Drive East near Drouillard Rd. The fledgling[…]
Windsor’s “Other” Rescue Squad
Following the annexation by Windsor of Riverside and a portion of Sandwich West Township on January 1, 1966 the Windsor Fire Department acquired half a dozen pieces of fire apparatus[…]
Sandwich’s Gotfredson
In one of our very first articles in this series, we chronicled the remarkable, continuing history of a Gotfredson-Bickle pumper delivered to the Walkerville Fire Department in 1927. Eight years[…]
The Hurricane Twins
In 1974, retired playground equipment maker Robert Wormser constructed a light-duty rescue unit in the garage of his Florida home. Buoyed by its success, he formed a company to make[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: Engine No. 9 From Riverside
With the annexation of the former Town of Riverside on January 1, 1966, the Windsor Fire Department acquired three pieces of apparatus: a two-year-old LaFrance/Mercury 100-foot quint with 840 gpm[…]
1938 Bickle/Ford Parade Rig
With the January 1, 1966 annexation by the City of Windsor of the former Town of Riverside and portions of Sandwich East and Sandwich West Townships, the Windsor Fire Department[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: The Seagrave Twins
After an absence of many years, the famed Seagrave nameplate returned to the Windsor Fire & Rescue Services apparatus roster in the early 1990s. Windsor’s first aerial ladder truck, purchased[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: The First Spartans
In 1975, several former employees of the recently-closed Diamond-Reo truck manufacturing firm in Lansing, Michigan organized a new company in nearby Charlotte to make custom cab-forward fire truck chassis for[…]
Windsor’s Second Snorkel: Aerial Tower No.2
Introduced in Chicago in 1958, the elevating platform – or Snorkel – revolutionized aerial firefighting in North America. The Windsor Fire Department received its first elevating platform in October, 1971.[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: The Pierreville Four
Although the Windsor fire Department had purchased two new pumpers in the early 1970s, the rest of the city’s pumper fleet was rapidly becoming antiquated. An American-LaFrance pumper delivered in[…]
1974 King/Ford: The Greening Of The W.F.D.
In 1970, a respected optometrist in Oswego, N.Y. released the results of a scientific study which concluded that yellow was a much more visible — and safer — color for[…]
First Of The Fords: Engine No. 10
In 1957, the Ford Motor Company introduced a new line of medium/heavy-duty trucks called the “C” Series. The new C-Series Ford’s rectangular, flat-faced cab tilted forward for unhindered access to[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: The Mack E-2
For most of the past century, the “big three” of the U.S. and Canadian fire apparatus industry were American-LaFrance, Seagrave — and Mack.Mack was unique among North American heavy truck[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: 1960 Pierre Thibault
By the mid-1950s, the Windsor Fire Department had pretty much completed its postwar modernization program. Following the delivery of a Bickle-Seagrave pumper in 1953, no more new pumpers or ladder[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: 1953 Bickle-Seagrave
In 1951, the Seagrave Corporation – and its Canadian subsidiary, Bickle-Seagrave Ltd. of Woodstock, Ontario — marked its 70th anniversary with the introduction of a totally redesigned series of pumpers[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: 1952 Bickle-Seagrave
In 1951, The Seagrave Corporation of Columbus, Ohio — and its Canadian cousin, Bickle-Seagrave Ltd. of Woodstock, Ontario — marked Seagrave’s 70th anniversary as one of North America’s leading manufacturers[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: 1950 Bickle-Seagrave – Engine #3
As the nineteen-fifties began, Windsor’s pumper fleet was urgently in need of modernization. Most of the city’s front-line pumpers were wide-open, chain-drive relics of the 1920s. The Windsor Fire Department[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: 1948 American-LaFrance 700
Immediately following the Second World War, Windsor’s firefighting fleet was in dire need of modernization. The city’s last new pumper had been purchased in the mid-1920s, and only one new[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: The Bickle Twins
Founded in Winnipeg in 1906 and relocated to Woodstock, Ontario in 1914, Bickle Fire Engines Ltd. was about as close to a purely Canadian motor fire apparatus manufacturer this nation[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: The 1925 LaFrance
Of the four chain-drive American-LaFrance pumpers which served the Windsor Fire Department from the 1920s through the 1950s, the last one purchased had the most colorful, and distinguished, service life.Built[…]
Windsor’s Pumpers: The Chain-Drive LaFrances
In 1914, the American-LaFrance Fire Engine Company of Elmira, N.Y. opened a Canadian subsidiary plant and office in Toronto. Founded in 1904 with roots extending all the way back to[…]
Windsor’s Rescue Squads Part 6 “The Saulsbury”
Three-quarters of a century later, one can only wonder what the members of Windsor’s very first rescue squad would think of Rescue 3 — Windsor’s current heavy rescue apparatus.Compared with[…]
Windsor’s Rescue Squads Part 5 – Tilt-Cab Fords
Purchased in the mid-1960s and early `70s, Windsor’s two rescue squad trucks were due for replacement as the 1980s began. Squad 1’s 1967 Chevrolet and Squad 2’s 1970 Fargo had[…]
Windsor’s Rescue Squads Part 4
Since the formation of its first emergency life-saving squad in the early 1930s, the Windsor Fire Department’s rescue squad had always responded to alarms out of the W.F.D.’s Headquarters Station[…]
Windsor’s Rescue Squads Part 3 – “The Bug” (continued)
After nearly 17 years of hard urban fire service, “The Bug” was simply wearing out. The fleet-footed 1940 Ford had already been through two flathead V8 engines, and repair parts[…]
Windsor’s Rescue Squads Part 2 – “The Bug”
Most of the current members of the Windsor Fire & Rescue Services won’t recognize this colorful nickname, but just mention “The Bug” to any longtime Windsor Fire Department retiree and[…]
Windsor’s Rescue Squads Part 1
Just over a century ago, in the latter part of 1906, the Springfield, Massachusetts Fire Department placed the first “Flying Squadron” into service. Using a locally-built Knox squad car, the[…]
Aerial Ladder Trucks – Part 8
“THE QUEBEC TWINS “ By the late 1970s, the years were again catching up to Windsor’s hard-working aerial ladder fleet. More than a decade had passed since the Windsor Fire[…]
Aerial Ladder Trucks – Part 7
“THE SNORKEL” Strolling back to his office after lunch one day in 1957, Chicago Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn paused to watch some city tree-trimmers at work in a city[…]
Aerial Ladder Trucks – Part 6
1967 LaFRANCE-INTERNATIONAL By the mid-1960s, Windsor’s aerial ladder fleet was beginning to show its age. Aerial No. 1A — a 1936 American-LaFrance — had been in service for nearly three[…]
Aerial Ladder Trucks – Part 5
THE RIVERSIDE QUINT The Quintuple Combination — or “Quint” — is the Swiss Army Knife of fire trucks. As its numerical name implies, the versatile “quint” combines five basic types[…]
Aerial Ladder Trucks – Part 4
THE “JUNIOR” AERIAL Two basic types of aerial ladder trucks dominated the North American fire service for most of the 20th century – the tractor-trailer tillered type with rear steering,[…]
Aerial Ladder Trucks – Part 3
“THE PIRSCH” The Second World War was finally over, and Windsor was again basking in peacetime prosperity. Because it had been an important centre for war production, with several major[…]
Aerial Ladder Trucks – Part 2
By the mid-1930s — twenty-five years after it had been delivered — Windsor’s first aerial ladder truck was clearly showing its age. Built in 1910, the W. E. Seagrave 85-foot[…]
Aerial Ladder Trucks – Part 1
Over a period of seventy-two years, the Windsor Fire Department acquired a total of nine conventional aerial ladder trucks – seven purchased by the city and two inherited as the[…]
Windsor’s City Service Ladder Trucks
Before there were aerial ladder trucks and firefighting elevating platforms, there was the City Service Ladder Truck. Visualize, if you can, an aerial truck without the aerial ladder. Also sometimes[…]
“Old Mike” – Windsor’s First Motor Pumper
Purchased in 1914, Windsor’s first motor-driven pumper was also one of the first automobile pumping engines placed in service by a Canadian fire department. Toronto did not acquire first motor[…]
Old Mike 2
Engine No. 2 was the pride of the Windsor Fire Department for the next five years — until it was displaced as our showpiece downtown pumper by the W.F.D.’s first[…]
The Elcombe
You’ve seen it in parades and at other community events, and perhaps you’ve even ridden on it — but what the heck is the Elcombe, anyway? All firefighters recognize such[…]
Hose No. 1
Perhaps the least used piece of front-line motor fire apparatus in Windsor Fire & Rescue Service history was a barely-remembered, single-purpose hose truck purchased during the Second World War. It[…]