Squadron Signal Publications

American Fire Apparatus Vol. 1 - Pumpers

by  Wayne Mutza

Reviewed By  Chris Mobley, IPMS# 42891

MSRP: $19.95 ISBN: 978-0-89747-593-8 Website: www.squadronsignalpublications.com The pumper or as it also referred to, an engine, is the workhorse of the fire service. Depending on the department these trucks can be the trucks that respond to nearly every type of call. The history of the pumper goes all the way back to the early 1700's when hand pumps were pulled to fires by hand and continues today to high tech high capacity trucks. But throughout that history and progression of technologies they have kept the same basic principal, putting the wet stuff on the red stuff. The book is about the normal size for one of Squadrons reference books and has nice artwork on the front and back of trucks in action. The book starts out giving the reader a history of pumpers through history and a couple of examples of some hand drawn apparatuses. It also hints at the other two volumes coming out the series covering aerials and special apparatuses. The meat of the book starts with the early years and shows several examples of hand pumpers, steam pumpers, horse drawn and even an apparatus on skis. There are a couple of photographs that would come in handy building the out of production AMT Christie Steam Pumper kit, while only one is of one of the options the kit comes with markings for, several of the other photographs give different views of the similar style pump system on horse drawn apparatuses, which could also be used to give reference on converting the kit to a horse drawn model. The following chapter also contains references for the kit as well as the book gets more into the motorization era. The further into the book the more photographs are shown. There is a wide variety of truck set ups shown so getting some great ideas for a build should be easy. There are also several trucks shown that are available on kits that could be converted to build the fire truck. Such as the Revell 1926 Mack, the Beverly Hillbillies truck and any number of truck kits from throughout the years. As the book progresses through the years I liked how it showed a wide variety of examples of pumpers. There is everything from bare bone and no chrome WW2 era trucks to highly decorated and sophisticated pumpers such as Aherns Fox and Seagraves. I was surprised to even see a trailer pumper similar to the type used in my home town back in the 1940's when an actual truck was not affordable. There are a few pictures that will be of reference use while building the AMT American LaFrance Pumper kit. Other kits that are available are not well represented in the book though. A number of them, though, would be of use with some resin cabs available from the various sources out there. Even without the references for kits, the book is still great for getting ideas of how to mount tools and equipment in different ways, get ideas for various body styles that you can adapt to a kit cab and for getting an idea for a great scratch build. If the book has one weakness to me, it is the lack of more than one view of most of the trucks. Most photos are front driver's 45 degree view. In all though there are 96 pages containing 300 photographs of fire trucks, that in its self is enough to get that desire to build a fire truck in you! Thanks to the LHS having it on the rack and me going in on payday for the review sample.