File:Metropolitan Fire Brigade Chevrolet fire engine - Brisbane - 26090154427.jpg

An interesting relic of the early days still preserved in Brisbane is a horse-drawn fire engine, intimately known to the firemen of Brisbane as "Bobs." The engine was purchased in 1898, and in the early days "Bobs," drawn by two fine grey horses, was the pride of Brisbane. The services of "Bobs" were only utilised on one occasion; that was in 1904, and ever since "Bobs" has stood spotlessly clean in a corner of the Brisbane Fire Station.

Brisbane's fire brigade was established in 1882, and for many years the brigade's only equipment consisted of a small manual engine and a hand-reel with large wheels and 500ft of leather hose. Canvas hose was unknown in those days, so were telephones, and often before the brigade arrived at the scene of a fire the building or buildings had been burned down.

Outside the brigade's headquarters was a fire-alarm bell, and the sum of £1 was always paid to the person who sounded the first alarm of a fire on this bell. In those days, too, the water pressure in Brisbane was so poor that when a fire occurred all of the water mains in the city, except the one being used by the firemen, had to be turned off.

Despite this "primitive" beginning, the Brisbane Fire Brigade is to-day one of the most efficient organisations of the kind in Australasia, both in equipment and in personnel. - P.

Description source: Sydney Mail, 27 January 1937

View the original image at the Queensland State Archives: