COBI Engine 13 Fire Station Set 1477

COBI's Engine 13 Fire Station is built from 330 blocks: a two-storey station with an exit gate, opening doors, a sliding pole, two beds and a small fire engine. Two figures are included, a firefighter and a dispatcher, with a laptop and a fire extinguisher. Part of the Action Town range.

The pole is a real invention with a date

Every fire station in fiction has one, and it exists because of a specific man on a specific afternoon in Chicago in 1878.

Engine Company 21 was housed in a three-storey building, and the crew slept on the top floor. Getting down meant a spiral staircase, which is slow and dangerous when several men take it at once in the dark.

The company also stored hay on the upper floor for the horses, raised by a long wooden pole. One of the firefighters, George Reid, was on the third floor when the alarm came, and rather than run for the stairs he slid down the hay pole and reached the apparatus floor well ahead of everyone else.

The captain, David Kenyon, asked the chief for permission to install a pole permanently. The request was met with some amusement, and it was granted. Engine 21 then began beating every other company in the city to fires, and within a few years poles were standard everywhere.

Modern stations are increasingly built on one floor and do not need them, which means the pole is slowly becoming a thing that exists mainly in toys.

In the COBI range

Part of Action Town, COBI's contemporary civilian range. Set 1444 is the Fire Patrol Unit, and 26629 the Bell 429 air ambulance.

Specifications

Pieces: 330 · Figures: 2 with accessories · Series: Action Town · Sliding pole, opening gate and doors, fire engine included