MP-1977.183.3.3 | Fire hose on street, Montreal(?), QC, about 1910
Fire hose on street, Montreal(?), QC, about 1910
Anonyme - Anonymous
About 1910, 20th century
Silver salts on paper - Gelatin silver process
9 x 7 cm
Purchase from Mme Madame France Langelier
MP-1977.183.3.3
© McCord Museum
Description
Keywords: cityscape (422) , disaster (45) , fire (16) , history (162) , History (944) , hose (4) , occupation work (1) , Photograph (77678) , police (18) , streetscape (187)
Keys to History
Here a team of firefighters is at work at the scene of a blaze. Grab that hose! Prior to the 19th century, people fought fires with nothing but buckets, hoses and hand-operated pumps. During the 1800s, Canadian cities established organized fire brigades. Two major innovations, in particular, led to more efficient alarm response: the introduction of the telegraph, which conveyed alarms to fire stations, and improvements to water supply systems, which made it possible to install fire plugs around the cities.
Source : Disasters and Calamities [Web tour], by Nathalie Lampron (see Links)
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What
By the 1870s, most large Canadian cities had steam-pumped water supply systems. These waterworks were often designed based on the flow needed to fight fires.
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Where
City waterworks consisted of reservoirs, pumping stations to control pressure, and pipelines and conduits to deliver water to households and fireplugs.
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When
In Montreal, prior to the purchase of a first hand-operated pump in 1824, volunteer brigades formed double lines to pass buckets back and forth from the river to the scene of the blaze.
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Who
Quartermaster Gilles Hocquart organized Montreal's first volunteer fire brigade in 1734.
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