The older rigs you see them on were departments that had an airport in their community or were immediately adjacent to an airport. I think there might have been some Federal funding involved.
Not necessarily so on the airport thing with a lot of the municipal pumpers with roof-mounted turrets. Seems like it started big in the 1960's, and American LaFrance, Maxim, Seagrave, and other manufacturers offered 'standard' pumpers with the addition of a roof-mounted foam turret. A lot of municipalities who purchased rigs of this type were no where near an airport, and many of these rigs were purchased due to the fact that these cities and towns may have had a major highway running thru their area, or for certain high hazard occupancies such as oil storage facilities, etc. Maxim supplied a good number of rigs of this type to many New England fire departments. Most of the Maxims were built on F Model chassis, with exceptions such as Springfield's S Model, which was a later model. The earlier rigs required a separate 'pony' engine to power the foam system. That changed in 1966, when American LaFrance built the first unit of this type to be powered by one engine. It was known as the 'Bristol Model' foam pumper, and the first one went to..of course...Bristol, Connecticut, and ran as Engine 1. It was later operated by Engine 4, before it was sold off, as a spare. It is still in Connecticut, at a campground in Litchfield County.
Mark Redman
Not necessarily so on the airport thing with a lot of the municipal pumpers with roof-mounted turrets. Seems like it started big in the 1960's, and American LaFrance, Maxim, Seagrave, and other manufacturers offered 'standard' pumpers with the addition of a roof-mounted foam turret. A lot of municipalities who purchased rigs of this type were no where near an airport, and many of these rigs were purchased due to the fact that these cities and towns may have had a major highway running thru their area, or for certain high hazard occupancies such as oil storage facilities, etc. Maxim supplied a good number of rigs of this type to many New England fire departments. Most of the Maxims were built on F Model chassis, with exceptions such as Springfield's S Model, which was a later model. The earlier rigs required a separate 'pony' engine to power the foam system. That changed in 1966, when American LaFrance built the first unit of this type to be powered by one engine. It was known as the 'Bristol Model' foam pumper, and the first one went to..of course...Bristol, Connecticut, and ran as Engine 1. It was later operated by Engine 4, before it was sold off, as a spare. It is still in Connecticut, at a campground in Litchfield County.
Mark Redman
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