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The Museum of Fire is dedicated to the preservation of the history of fire and firefighting, first and foremost within NSW and Australia but where applicable across the world. Though our heritage and research team generally focus upon the former, occasionally their research sees them come across stories of fire and firefighting from international sources. These are a few such pieces from 200 years ago and 50 years ago. 200 years ago – Norway Two hundred ago last week, the

The following is an extract from the June 2011 edition of Fire News. The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami ( 東北地方太平洋沖地震, Tōhoku-chihō Taiheiyō Oki Jishin ) began at 2:46pm Japan Standard Time on 11th March 2011. The epicentre of the earthquake was in the Pacific Ocean, 72km east of the Oshika Peninsula, and lasted approximately 6 minutes, resulting in a tsunami. The Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) unit of Fire and Rescue NSW travelled to Japan to provide rescue aid in the aftermat

It was 10 years ago that a fire broke out in Harvey Norman in the Museum’s neighbouring suburb of Jamisontown. The Fire and Rescue NSW Sydney Communication Centre received an Automatic Fire Alarm to the Harvey Norman retail centre, Jamisontown, at 3:41p.m. on Friday 24th February, 2012. The centre contained warehouses, offices, retail areas and showrooms, and stood at about 16,300m2 in size. Initially, Pumper 102 Regentville and Aerial Pumper 86 Penrith were assigned to the c

The Australian ‘Black Summer’ bushfires of 2019-2020 saw a period of intense, high-severity fires spread across Australia, burning an immense 17 million hectares of land. Thirty-three people, include nine firefighters, lost their lives, approximately 3,000 homes were destroyed, and over one billion animals were killed or injured. During the catastrophic season, chief photographer at The Sydney Morning Herald , Nick Moir, captured what is now one of the most iconic photographs

This week we’re winding the clock back 100 years to the great wool store fire at Kirribilli Point, 1921. Wool stores were extremely vulnerable due to the bales of wool they housed as well as wooden floors that were saturated in lanolin. They were so flammable that the Goldsborough Mort wool store fire of 1935 was suspected to have been started by a single cigarette butt. The Pastoral Financial Association wool store sat at Kirribilli Point, nearly opposite Circular Quay, and

Here at the Museum, we focus on local firefighting history, but did you know that floods are the most expensive type of natural disaster we face? The costliest summer for floods in Australia was 2010-11 across Lockyer Valley, Ipswich and Brisbane which cost 7.45 billion dollars! This week, we’re looking at the town of Narrabri, which due to its geography, is no stranger to a flood or two. Narrabri is located in the Northwest Slopes of New South Wales on Kamilaroi country, abo

Here at the Museum of Fire our collection focus is on preserving the history of local firefighting history, specifically that of firefighting in NSW and across Australia. For that reason, we don’t often bring you stories from overseas however this week, 150 years ago, the Great Chicago Fire occurred, and we thought it was a good opportunity to share a brief history of the devastating event as it had far reaching ramifications for the development of fire protection. Around 8.3