Cross-County Apparatus Photography

By

Shaun Ryan

In early September 2010 Chuck Madderom and Shaun Ryan took a cross-country trip to bring a car to Sparks, Nevada. The purpose was to bring the vehicle back to northern Nevada from Raleigh, NC, it provided an opportunity to take photographs at many fire departments across the US along Interstate 40 (I-40). The departments that we contacted were universally friendly and cooperative. The weather, excepting one morning in Tennessee, was unexpectedly excellent throughout the journey. We offer our thanks to the departments and their personnel for excellent cooperation and hospitality.

The first day, September 10th, involved stops in Clemmons, Advance (Smith Grove FD), Cool Springs, Statesville (Ebenezer and Monticello FDs) NC. The next day opened with clouds and heavy rain as we proceed through the Smokey Mountains to the Knoxville, TN area. The weather finally cleared up in Cookeville and we visited all of their stations. The third day, September 12th, we stopped in Jackson, TN and took all of their units before traveling on to Brownsville, TN where we took their three units.

The fourth day we took pictures at the Forrest City, AK department. This department operates out of a single station and had a nice variety of equipment. The Brinkley and Conway, AK departments were photographed this afternoon and we finished up in late afternoon at one of the Russellville, AK stations.

It was on to Oklahoma on the fifth day, September 14th, and the El Reno FD was photographed. This department had a particularly interesting assortment of equipment including a restored 1948 American La France 710-PJO pumper. After leaving El Reno, we stopped at another very interesting OK department, the Weatherford FD. One of their most interesting rigs was a 1942 Ford/Boardman.

We continued in OK on September 15th and photographed the Elk City FD. The Elk City FD had a very diverse set of interesting apparatus. Late in the morning we drove into the Texas panhandle and found volunteers at both the Shamrock and McLean VFDs. These departments are focused on wildland fires and had some unusual former military units converted into brush rigs.

New Mexico was our destination on September 16th and we photographed many rigs at the Tucumcari FD. This department had a wide variety of units, both original purchases and units acquired from other departments. After Tucumcari we traveled to Grants, NM and took pictures at their two stations. That evening we arrived in the Albuquerque area and on Friday, September 17th, took pictures in Bernalillo County and Albuquerque. The Bernalillo County FD has an extremely attractive paint scheme, black over red with exquisite striping and handwork on the units’ bodies.

On September 18th we photographed the units of the Gallup FD, again an interesting assortment of vehicles before proceeding to Winslow, Arizona where a single duty firefighter assisted us by position this department’s white and blue rigs. The day concluded with a trip to Station 1 in Flagstaff for two units.

Saturday, September 19th, saw us focused on Flagstaff, but included trips to the Summit Fire District and to the Highlands FD. All of these departments had modern equipment. This day concluded with an unexpected stop at a Ponderosa FD station in Bellermont, AZ which had three modern units.

The next day started in Kingman, AZ where we photographed most of the department. We also made stops at Mohave Valley and Fort Mohave, AZ with two sets of modern, interesting equipment. After stopping at the Fort Mohave station, we proceeded on to Bakersfield, CA, a long trip to be certain.

We found that stopping at smaller-to-mid-sized departments enabled us to get pictures of varied equipment. We visited the departments on the nights before we planned to take pictures when possible. This tactic worked very well throughout the trip. We purposely avoided extended “side trips” which would have taken us off our intended route. Although we looked at volunteer departments we did not expend time and effort attempting to find individuals who could assist in these often small, rural areas. We also did not focus on large municipal departments since our assessment was that they would have many single-unit stations.