Story type

Station Life

Traditions, people, and culture.

Ink-and-wash illustration of a red vintage fire engine with a long hood, chrome grille and bumper, a red beacon on the cab roof and hose racked along its side, driven down a street past a small crowd of waving onlookers.

Station Life · Station & Leadership

Charlotte Fire takes its 1958 Seagrave long-nose for a ride

The engine opened Station 11 in 1959, trained recruits for years and came out of storage for one more working shift in 1997. It still runs.

Ink-and-wash illustration of two firefighters in turnout gear and helmets, seen from behind, walking side by side across a wet apparatus bay floor toward an open bay door and palm trees, one with a hand on the other's shoulder, beside a parked red fire engine.

Station Life · Station & Leadership

A last shift on his 60th birthday, alongside his son

Miami-Dade firefighter Alan Lilly finished 21 years with the department at Station 76, on his birthday, working with his son Justin.

Ink-and-wash illustration of firefighters in navy uniform shirts pushing a new red fire engine back into the bay of a brick fire station while families and a small child watch from the side.

Station Life · Station & Leadership

Push-in season: why crews still push new rigs into the bay

The ceremony goes back to horse-drawn engines. Gridley, Wichita and Boca Raton all put new apparatus in service the old way this year.

Ink-and-wash illustration of a dark statue of a dog lying on a patch of grass, wearing a chain collar and blue rubber boots on its front paws, with two more boots on the grass beside it, in the main hall of a glass-roofed railway station with travelers walking past.

Station Life · Station & Leadership

Wallace the Glasgow fire dog gets his statue

A stray that ran ahead of Glasgow's horse-drawn engines from 1894 to 1902 now stands in the main hall of Glasgow Central Station, rubber boots included.