Blog

In commemoration of its 100 th  birthday, the Museum of Fire is pleased to announce the 1926 ME 88 Garford Hale as the 2026 Vehicle of the Year. This small but mighty appliance served for over 40 years in a number of fire stations across regional New South Wales, an exemplar of early firefighting history in our state. Museum of Fire 2026 Vehicle of the Year the 1926 ME 88 Garford Hale fire engine, 2026 [Museum of Fire collection] The Garford Motor Truck Company and its Role i

On 11 November 1972 at 10:53am, Newcastle fire station received a direct line telephone call from the nearby state dockyard. A suction hopper dredging vessel, the WDA Resolution, had caught ablaze whilst sitting in the harbour of the state dockyard. The vessel, built only earlier that year, was one of the largest produced dredging ships in Australia weighing over 5400 tons, measuring 116 metres in length and 18 metres wide. Suction dredges were used throughout the area to mai

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