WFRS Apparatus Histories

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.[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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.[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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,[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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.[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

“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[…]

“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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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,[…]

“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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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[…]