This Christmas, we should be receiving a gift we have been waiting for over 20 years. Our volunteer Fire Department started with a 4-wheel-drive and a cart-mounted 100 gallon water tank, and has since progressed to become the proud owners of two large all-terrain pumpers and one 4-wheel-drive with a small tank & pump for fast response. For the last seven years, we have been housed in a small portion of the basement of the town’s sports hall, sharing the space with many other organizations and groups, including the Police depot. It was simple, very dusty, no showers, toilets, changing or sleeping facilities, and barely space to sit around and be comfortable during a tour.

    Before

These are some pictures of what the old house looked like.

Fire house



The entrance. Bombers in Catalan can be translated as ‘pumpers’, from the word ‘bomba’ which means pump. As a matter of fact, the French call themselves Pompiers, so it ties in. Nothing to do with bombs, believe me! This is the “control room”. Yeah, stop laughing. It looks real ugly now, as we have not really used the place much in the last two months, as construction work all around it have made it unbearably dusty.

Truck 202 and the 4-wheel, sleeping in a cold, humid and ugly place. The will soon have a much more comfortable stay. Our mini-museum, showing some glass beer and perfume bottles, recovered from a house fire a few years ago. The heat was intense enough to deform the bottles into the shape you see, but not intense enough to turn them into glass blobs. Underneath are some very old nozzles.




 

 The new firehouse

 

Here are some pictures of the construction work going on. It is still rough and unfinished, but it definitely has a shape now. All should be done by Christmas, when we will move in and provide the finishing touches.

Truck 202’s new sleeping quarters. In this space we could actually fit two trucks, it’s really amazing that after so many years, we are getting so much room!

   This is the view from where the kitchen will be, towards the entrance, on the left. The Flickr photo has some comment notes. The doors on the left lead to the sleeping quarters and changing rooms & showers. We will keep the high ceiling, it makes the place look roomier.

This is a reverse look, towards the kitchen, which will go against the wall at the back.

In all, we are really happy that finally, after many years of only asking for a decent place to stay during tours, in return for our time spent fighting fires, rescuing cats, horses (don’t ask!) and other animals from the most unlikely places, pumping out water during floods, rescuing people and delivering food during heavy snowfalls, we will get a very decent firehouse.