Fire has been with us for thousands of years, and although the Romans recognised fire hazards to timber buildings as early as 6 BC, and set up groups of slaves as fire-fighters, very little was done elsewhere on an organised scale against this very real menace. The Romans even used siphos or squirts to spray jets of water, but when Roman rule in Britain ended in the fifth century so did any form of organised fire-service.
One of the earliest fire-laws was passed by King Alfred in 872, requiring all fires in Oxford to be covered at night on the ringing of a bell. Following the Norman invasion this law was extended to the whole country, requiring a metal cover or couvre feu be placed over the fire, thus the term curfew, and the ringing of the curfew bell at night. This unpopular law was repealed by Henry I, although house-holders were still required to keep a bucket of water next to the fire, and although an illustration of 1598 showed the hazards of attempting to fight a major fire in Tiverton, the organisation of any sort of fire-service was still very slow to come.
The first English fire-engine patent was granted to Roger Jones in 1625 by James I, based on a Nuremberg design. Roger Jones died of the plague soon after, but his brother continued building pumps in partnership with William Burroughs. By the time of the Great Fire of London very little advancement had been made. The few pumps available were totally inadequate to fight the conflagration which was only eventually stopped by the use of explosives to destroy rows of wooden buildings in order to make a fire break. The fire destroyed over 13,000 homes, many churches and the original St Paul's Cathedral, and resulted in rapid innovations in fire-fighting over the next quarter century.
Insurance companies protected their assets by setting up their own fire brigades, the first known being the Sun Insurance Company in 1710 which distributed leather fire buckets bearing its distinctive golden sun crest to its clients. These may well have been the first branded corporate freebies!
The fire hose was invented in Amsterdam in 1672, appearing in England two years later, and enabled water to be pumped directly to the heart of the fire. In 1721 Richard Newsham of Smithfield was granted a patent for his revolutionary fire pump. This design, actually based on a two thousand year old idea using an air chamber to boost pressure, could throw 110 gallons of water per minute, and Newsham pumps can still be found in working order today.
Merryweather began trading in 1692 with their leather fire bucket, becoming a leading name in fire appliances for almost three hundred years, eventually closing in the mid 1980s. The practicable manual fire pump had arrived by the middle of the eighteenth century, and was made portable by various methods. Merryweather's cabinet fire engine and the Tozer pump of the nineteenth century were two of several hand-carried examples. Edwardian ladies were provided with the Boudoir Fire Engine with lightweight buckets and polished wooden stand, whilst bigger appliances were adapted for horse power. The new fire engines were bought by insurance companies, parish and municipal volunteer brigades and by private brigades run by country house owners, who adopted fire-fighting as a fashionable new hobby.
As appliances grew bigger and the demand for higher water-power increased, pump designers turned to steam as a source of power. The first steam pump was built in London in 1829 by Braithwaite and Ericsson, although steam pumps proved unpopular with the volunteer paid pumpers who feared redundancy, and it wasn't until 1858 and 1861 respectively that the big firms of Shand Mason and Merryweather produced their first steam pumps.
The next logical step was to harness the power of steam to propel the appliance as well as power the pump, and in 1900 Merryweather's steam-powered Fire King appeared. By this time the petrol engine was becoming well-established and in 1903 the first motor powered appliance supplied to a public brigade was delivered to Tottenham in London by Merryweathers, joining one of their Fire Kings in the first urban station to be built without stabling for horses.
Many innovations in appliances appeared over the next quarter century, with purpose built escapes and chemical pumps being developed. Merryweathers took over Shand Mason, and Dennis and Leyland Motors became specialist appliance builders. Although the more civilised enclosed limousine-bodied appliance first appeared in 1931, the vintage-look open-bodied or Braidwood style appliance lasted until after WWII.
In 1938 the Auxiliary Fire Service was commissioned by the Home Office with the threat of war in Europe. Initially served by a motley collection of make-shift vehicles, the AFS contracted Austin Motors to supply purpose-built auxiliary-towing-vehicles for the Coventry Climax and other trailer pumps, and during the course of the war around 9000 ATVs were built.
As the Blitz progressed it became obvious that the AFS was unable to cope, and in 1941 the National Fire Service was formed, absorbing the AFS, and its grey livery became a familiar sight on the bomb-torn streets of Britain's cities. The NFS was dissolved in 1948, although some central control from the Home Office was retained over the local fire authorities.
In 1953, with the threat of nuclear war, the AFS was reformed and orders were placed for new appliances. Some of these were the famous Green Goddesses, which were used in 1977 during the National Firemen's strike, and again to pump flood waters in 1994.
Modern appliances have become very specialised, like the moon-buggy-style all-terrain-vehicle used on the Yorkshire moors, motorway rescue appliances fitted with heavy cutting and lifting gear, six-wheel-drive high-speed airport crash-tenders with foam cannons, and the brutish Bronto Skylift. Built on a Volvo platform this 22 ton escape ladder can work safely almost 100ft above the ground.
The fastest fire-engine, capable of 129mph fully laden with foam fire-fighting equipment, is the support vehicle supplied by Chubb for Richard Noble's land-speed record attempt. Nicknamed Thrust 2, this Jaguar XJ12-based rescue vehicle has also provided fire support at Silverstone Race Circuit.
From leather fire-bucket to executive fire-appliance has taken 2000 years of development, but it took the catastrophic Great Fire of 1666, a wake-up call if ever there was one, and the Blitz of 1941 to speed development of more effective equipment for modern fire-brigades.
