Chev Blitz Firetruck, Sydney, OZ, 1994.
 

Greetings

Attached is a photo of a firetruck from the Maianbar Bushfire Brigade during the 1994 Sydney bushfires. Maianbar (pronounced 'Mainbar'), is a small hamlet on the northern edge of the famous Royal National Park of Sydney, Australia.

The graphic picture is from a 1994 magazine called "The Wild Fires of 1994". I am presuming that the piccy was taken during the 1994 bushfires that engulfed Sydney's suburbs.

Is the bloke in shorts on the top of the tanker really, really, holding a vehicular fire extinguisher :confused?

The Maianbar brigade belonged to the Sutherland Shire Bushfire Brigade district, of which another brigade (Loftus) also had a Studebaker US6 fire truck until the mid-late 1990s.

See the link for some more Blitz and Studebaker bushfire truck pictures.

http://www.blaxland.com/bushfire/Equ...t%20photos.htm

See also the NSW State Library site { http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/ }, and search on 'fire trucks'. You will see some blitz and Studebaker images.

Enjoy

Bruce Gilbert
Gloucester NSW.

Pic date
 

I'm pretty sure I remember seeing this spectacular image sometime in the late 60s or early 70s.

It sure looks like an old CTC fire extinguisher the improperly attired fellow on top of the truck is holding.

The directional tyres on the front of the truck are facing opposite to each other. Hedging their bets there. One of 'em's gotta be right!

David

David,

Depends which year the tyres were put on - they may both be 'right'!!

As mentioned, the bloke in the shorts is really attired well to resist all those burning embers that inevitably arrive before the fire front: maybe he's going to use the Carbon-tet extinguisher to both douse the flames AND dry clean his shorts at the same time!!

Graphic image, though. Not a nice spot to be in.

Mike C

Yes Keith, I think the image is much earlier than 1994. I took the image from a book called "The Wild Fires of 1994", which covered the Sydney/NSW bushfires of 1994. I was with the RFS (Sutherland Shire's Illawong Brigade) during the 1994 fires, and was in the thick of fires in the Royal National Park, in particular Maianbar. That image was in the section in the book called 'Black Days - Great fires in Australia's history'. But a graphic image, nevertheless.

The fire image shows a mix of 'uniforms', and the person wearing a black army-type cap may be either a police officer or NSW Fire Brigade (NSW Board of Fire Commissioners) station officer. I'm thinking NSW in the 64/65 fires.

Such rag-tag firefighting efforts are almost confined to history these days, me thinks.

BG

The http://www.blaxland.com/bushfire/Equ...t%20photos.htm

Thewebsite associated with Blaxland Bush Fire Brigade has a couple of vehicles which are still in the AMVCS. I think one of the Blitz's belongs to Roly Davey and has attended Corowa a few years ago. The Jeep belonged to Brian and Maureen Bell and now belongs to John Oldenmenger. It has attended a few Corowa gatherings.