4x4 Fire Trucks Story and photos by John Gunnell
P
robably the first four-wheel-drive fire truck ever made was a 1911 tractor built by the Couple Gear Freight Wheel Equipment Co. of Grand Rapids, Mich. But it was not really made to be used off road. The Couple Gear tractor had an electric motor on each of its four wheels that helped it pull a water tower that was formerly pulled by horses. The water tower was pulled like a trailer and not likely to be used to put out a brush fire.
In 1917, the Four Wheel Drive Auto Co. (FWD) of Clintonville, Wis. delivered its first motor-pumping fire engine to Minneapolis. Fire truck historian Walter McCall’s American Fire Engines since 1900 (Crestline 1976) says, “The pug-nosed FWD fire truck quickly acquired a reputation for being able to traverse almost any kind of ground.” That same year, the Tulsa, Okla. fire department began using a four-wheel-drive Nash Quad as a rescue squad truck. Many FWDs and Nash Quads built for the United States Army were available as low-priced war surplus vehicles after World War I ended. In 1926, under the direction of master mechanic William F. Stiebel, the Milwaukee Fire Dept. started to build its own fire trucks instead of using factory-built trucks. The earliest of these had Timken axles, but later versions designated MMFDFWD models used FWD axles. These 4x4s were extremely well-built and comparable to factory trucks. Although they utilized the four-wheel-drive technology, many had dual rear wheels. By 1930, FWD was building a few “four-wheeldrive” fire trucks each year. In 1930, the company turned out a small pumper on a 1929 FWD chassis for the town of Lead, S.D. It had a Waterous pump and was starting to resemble a go-anywhere brush truck that could carry water into a brush fire or forest fire and pump the H2O out on it. By 1940, FWD had greatly increased its fire truck business and brought out a restyled series of
20 OFF-ROAD Plus MAGAZINE OCT/NOV 2020
