L.A.'s One-Two Punch

Fighting big fires with even bigger water

A forward-thinking Los Angeles fire chief brainstormed big water power for major fires. The twin-engine pumper and manifold wagon combination companies remained on the job into the 1960s, when this photo at historic Station 27 in Hollywood was snapped.
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Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

January, 2013 - Jim Donnelly

To really grasp this story, you have to understand that Los Angeles was a very different place during the 1930s. Its downtown was tightly packed with commercial and retail buildings. A then-vibrant industrial area sprawled off toward the south. Then there was Hollywood, with its combustible wooden sound stages. Not even considering its brushy canyons, that meant that Los Angeles was primed for very serious fires.

What could have been one of the most disastrous erupted downtown in early 1931 at a J.J. Newberry store on South Broadway. The blaze broke out just before rush hour, but Los Angeles Fire Department companies were late reaching the scene because the streets were already jammed with traffic, which then included trolleys. The blaze was raging out of control when firefighters arrived. Gridlocked traffic forced engine companies to hook to hydrants blocks away from Newberry's and drag hoses through the streets. Fourteen firefighters trying to vent smoke through the roof narrowly escaped death by jumping clear just before it caved in.

The aftermath led to some deep thinking on the part of Chief Engineer Ralph J. Scott, who had been the LAFD's highest-ranking officer since 1919. He remains the longest-serving chief engineer in LAFD history. Scott was an innovator, taking the department from the horse-drawn to the motorized era, getting the city to approve its first fireboat, and expanding coverage in the dangerous, chaparral-stoked San Fernando Valley. The delays in fighting the Newberry fire gave Scott his brightest idea of all, a new type of engine company consisting of two remarkably powerful trucks.

They became known as the Duplex-Manifold companies, two rigs responding under the same company number. The catalyst came in 1937, when American LaFrance of Elmira, New York, introduced its Senior 400 Series pumper, powered by a 754-cu.in., 240hp V-12. It was potent enough to power rotary pumps of up to 2,000 GPM. Scott was intrigued, and commissioned American LaFrance to build the LAFD four pumpers with not one, but two V-12s each: One up front to power the truck and a pump, and a second engine at the rear running a pump alone. These were the Duplex pumpers. Next, Scott commissioned Seagrave of Columbus, Ohio (which had its own 240hp V-12, displacing 906 cubic inches), to build what amounted to a water works on wheels. The manifold wagon could feed up to eight big hose lines, plus a huge water cannon on its deck. The Duplex-Manifold rigs were the first LAFD apparatus delivered with closed cabs.

These photographs come from Walt Jaeger, a volunteer with the LAFD's historical society and co-author, with Dave Cox, of Horses to Horsepower, a history of the department's rigs just released by M.T. Publishing. Walt explained to us that the usual protocol at major fires was to have the Duplex-Manifold rigs respond as a single company, including one from Station 27 in Hollywood, now the LAFD's museum. The manifold wagon would pull up in front of the burning building. At least one Duplex, plus other pumpers, would supply it with water. The flow could be broken up into hand lines, the cannon or the LAFD's ladder trucks or water towers.

As to the Duplexes, the LAFD received two each of 1937 (Engine 23, Engine 3) and 1938 American LaFrance (Engine 28, Engine 5) duplex pumpers, the earlier with dual 1,500-GPM pumps; the 1938s with twin 2,000s. Seagrave delivered two manifold wagons in 1938 (Engine 3, Engine 23), each with 1,200 feet of 3 1/2-inch hose; smaller hose in transverse beds; and 16 2 1/2-inch outlets, eight per side. There was also a single 1938 American LaFrance manifold wagon (Engine 5). Later, the LAFD bought a single 1949 Mack manifold wagon (Engine 3). The final manifold wagon was a 1963 Crown (W17), called Big Bertha, now at LAFDHS, paired with a 1964 Crown 2,000-GPM pumper (P17) that replaced the last of the original ALF duplexes.

The two-piece engine company was a Los Angeles firefighting staple for years, usually mating a standard triple-combination pumper with a hose wagon under a single company number and captain. During the 1960s, the system evolved to the current organizational structure, known as a task force, under which the rigs' station numbers were prefaced by a P for Pumper and W for Wagon. In Station 3's task force downtown, for instance, the two-piece company's trucks were lettered P3 and W3 during this era, and when it expanded to encompass a third engine company, that was designated E203. Without the lettering, this task force system endures today.

The Duplex-Manifold system was capable of attacking major fires with unprecedented force, which nearly proved its undoing. In November 1939, another downtown commercial building on Broadway erupted in flames. This one, the Gray Building, had a printing firm located on its top floor. Three Duplex-Manifold combos plus the LAFD water tower poured tons of water into the structure, which soaked the printing firm's paper rolls and led to an interior floor collapse that killed two firefighters. Scott felt their loss deeply and took retirement the following year. The 1930s rigs still remained on the job well into the 1960s (the Station 27 image shows an actual response from those years). As Walt told us, sadly, none of the historic original Duplex or manifold wagons is known to have survived, even in a junkyard.


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