By Ron Heal

In 1921, Sarnia (Ontario, Canada) Fire Rescue began a program that would motorize its fire apparatus. Over the next five years, the three pieces of horse-drawn apparatus would be replaced with three pieces of motorized fire apparatus built by the American LaFrance Foamite Company in Toronto, Ontario.

Two pumpers and a service ladder truck would take the place of the horse-drawn equipment in the city’s only fire hall on George Street, just off the business district in the city. The population was 13,000 at the time.

The first apparatus to arrive in Sarnia in the summer of 1922 was a 1921 combination pumper/chemical rig. The Type 75 registration number 3441 came equipped with a 740-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump, a 50-gallon chemical tank, hard rubber tires, and a hand-cranked siren. A type 14-6 combination service ladder truck followed later that year. A second pumper Type 45 arrived in Sarnia in 1926, marking the end of the horse-drawn apparatus era.

It would be 1948 before any of the three rigs would be replaced. The first unit to be replaced was the ladder truck when the department purchased a 1948 Pirsch 75-foot open cab aerial truck. In 1951, the department purchased a 700 Series American LaFrance closed cab pumper to replace the 1921 pumper as the front-line apparatus. For 30 years, the 1921 pumper had responded to all the fire calls in the city. Service records indicate that one of the last fires that the rig would be used was a large mid-1950s fire on Front Street in the commercial district of Sarnia.

The pumper would remain on the department roster, first as a spare and later brought out for various public relations events in Sarnia and nearby communities. It is told that the pumper made a last appearance at the Brigden (Ontario) Fair in 1967 during Canada’s centennial year. A mechanical issue on the aging rig resulted in the pumper being driven back to Sarnia, a 15-mile trip, in first gear. The truck was parked in Fire Hall 2, and there it stayed for several years. The pumper was just worn out.

Captain (Ret.) Mike Simpson came on the job in 1989. At times when he was assigned to Fire Hall 2, he would see the old pumper parked and gathering all the loose stuff that can be around a fire hall. During quiet times, Simpson did his best to keep things at least orderly around the old truck. From time to time, there were conversations about restoring the rig but not much action. The sister motorized pumper had long been sold off to a local businessman, and the ladder truck had been scrapped.

In the mid 1990s, Simpson talked with Chief RobertTimms about buying the truck, with the goal of getting the rig running and pumping. The chief approached the city council, and for the sum of $1.00 the truck was purchased. The purchase price was the easy part. The hard part would be raising funds and finding the people with the skills to do a restoration. For the next several years, fundraisers were held to get the monies needed for a restoration. Over the years, many members of Sarnia Fire & Rescue gave their time and talents to do research and several stages of a full restoration on the pumper. It would be 2003 before a restoration could be started, and it would be 2021 before the restoration neared completion.