More complex and imposing than any other vehicle in the British emergency services, the fire engine has a long and interesting history. At first a blaze could only be tackled by buckets of water being passed along a human chain, but by the eighteenth century manual pumps were developed which were moved around by hand. It was horse-drawn fire engines, steam power and eventually motorised power that quickly came to revolutionise firefighting. In this beautifully illustrated introduction, Eddie Baker charts the history of fire engines and the increasingly complex equipment they have carried, such as high-rise ladders, high-pressure hoses and radio communication. He also explains the wider history of the fire service and how the engines have been shaped by its needs and, most importantly, those of the firemen.
