Fire Engines Photos

Excellent period photo showing that in France too wood wheeled ladders were once commonplace. They did however die out much earlier than in Britain.

Added by Rob Johnson on 26 November 2022.

I have not been able to fully document the history of these Gugumus wood and (later) steel wheeled ladders. It seems they were commonplace around the turn of the century and metal replaced wood after WWII. They were still in use in the 1960s but seem to have died out shortly afterwards, probably mostly due to the prevalence of relatively compact turntable ladders around 18 to 24 metres - as well as the introduction of light alloy 12, 14 and 15 metre extension ladders which could be carried on almost any pumper.

This site does include a modern wheeled 18 meter French ladder, which has an electric motor…. As I remember, it is also operated in Colmar - a town which hung on to its old manual Gugumus 18 meter ladder for many years!

Added by Rob Johnson on 28 November 2022.

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