r/Firefighting • u/found10mm • 10d ago

Photos My parents found my great grandfathers fire helmet in storage

Gallery image

Gallery image

He worked for the San Francisco fire department in the early 1900s, thought it was cool enough to share

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u/Bionicfrog14432 10d ago

Station 17 bayview built in 1960. Helmet fits that period. Very very cool.

10

u/OneSplendidFellow 9d ago

1906 maybe?

6

u/Bionicfrog14432 9d ago

I could not find any information earlier than 1960. And a picture from 1964 from SF archive of very similar helmets. I’m not an expert though. 1906 would have been an interesting time. The stories it could tell.

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u/OneSplendidFellow 9d ago

The high eagle era ended around the mid 30s, though nothing is ever really abrupt.  Afterward, it would most likely have been 5As with a shorter, non-eagle front holder and a 6" front instead of the 8" on this one.  guardiansofthecity.org has page with some dates on the various iterations of Eng. 17, but for some reason my phone freezes on the gallery, so I don't have anything more than that.

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u/Bionicfrog14432 9d ago

Very interesting. I got a crash course of San Francisco FD history while trying to date it. The gallery fails to load for me also. This helmet could have survived the fire of 1906 potentially. That’s insane to think about.