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A home for those who love and/or have answered the call on a Crown Firecoach!!!
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Comment by Clayton R. Howe on June 28, 2009 at 1:49pm -
My wife won't let me have our own Crown! Probably for the better, as we don't need anymore yard art. My own association with Crown Fire Coach starts with my years as an Explorer. Santee FD of San Diego County had a Crown Engine 4222 out of their Station 2. It was unique in that it had a compressed air system to run tools, for example their blower/smoke ejectors. One story they told us youngsters, ocurred when on a Strike Team to Pine Valley, CA for structure protection, during the Laguna Fire of 1970. As the story goes the Strike Team Leader was asking the status of his five engines as they took the long slow gradients toward the San Diego County mountains on Interstate 8. When he came to 4222 he asked where are you? They replied "Look in your rearview mirror" this Crown was very powerful and right on his tail.
Santee had as 4221 a Crown/Pierce Tele-squrt. Crown badged Pierces sold through them at the time.
Incidentally, this will hurt some of you, I apologize in advance, but the color was Chrome Yellow on these apparatus. The old reserve we used was red, and perhaps led to my preference of the whites, yellows and yes Lime as Safety Colors and my disdain for reds. This is balanced by my wifes love of the San Francisco FD's Maroon/brownish, what is that color red...okay, I admit it is pretty. But the coolest has to be Nevada Division of Forestry and their Tourqouise/white Crown, that was unusaul!
When I was at San Marcos Fire Protection District we spec'ed a Wide body Crown. Our Chief at the time, Stan Mourning had come to San Marcos from then Spring Valley (Now consolidated with Grossmont-Mt. Helix and East County FPD as San Miguel). His vision included setting up an apparatus design committee on which I served. His engineering accumen provided us with a powerful hill climbing gearing and rear end to allow us access into our mountainous parts of the city. The committee spec'ed three transverse 1 3/4" beds. 4 rear hose storage beds for 800+ LDH, reverse connected to 1500' 2 1/2"for long rural driveway lays, 400' 2 1/2" connected to a selecto-matic nozzle for Industrial attack options and a compartment used variously over the years for High-rise pack or 1 1/2" rolled Single Jacket Hose for vegetation fires. The Deck Gun was preplumbed with a detachable Stang Monitor. An innovative Air Actuated rear 4" Suction helped keep the big hose to the rear. The #4 Discharge was plumbed for LDH (4"). And although ordered with 3/4" reel line this was discouraged for fire attack.
Our visits to Crown included meetings with Joe (I forget the Salesman's last name) and Red Altmore (sp?) At the time of our construction the City of Corona had two being built and I recall Chino Hills had one? We also purchased a Crown Badged/Pierce "Mini-pumper" as a Type IV Engine for vegetation fires and for Medial Aids in the west side of the district. (It wasn't particularly successful, too little water for the departments attack methods, and a poor period of Dodge chassis quality).
This San Marcos Crown served several years and has been sold. While I had moved on to Monterey Park for a promotion opportunity, their Engine 63 was a white over red, wide body Crown.
In my current position at BLM Fire in San Diego County, I had the pleasure to drive Campo VFD post (San Diego City?) Crown. This rig is gone now. San Pasquals wide body Crown Tele-squrt formerly of City of Big Bear (I remember when it was up there). And a wide body Crown privately owned in Japatul Valley, CA, one of three Crowns one each of Huntington Baech, Buena Park and Orange County.
I think the interest or mystique was their solid reputation as the Cadillac of fire apparatus. And you just weren't a "real" fire department if you didn't look like the big boys with their Crowns (Orange, LA County, LAFD, etc.)
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Comment by Jake Fireman on April 20, 2009 at 2:35pm - I LOVE those old crowns! Growing up in Southern California I saw alot of them...Seems like back in the 70's everybody was runnin Crowns around town. The first engine I worked on was an 84 crown. Also worked on a 79 and an 81 open top!
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Comment by The "Ric"-ster on November 29, 2008 at 11:19pm - How's it going Chris? Welcome! So, how did you come to be a fan of Crown Fire Coaches? My first engine was an open cab Crown similar to the one shown. In fact, I worked briefly on the engine pictured above (E-20 with Orange County Fire Authority).
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