Steve Ellis, a retired battalion chief from the Tucson Fire Department, is part of a volunteer restoration crew that works to restore old fire trucks. The crew began restoring trucks in 2006. It usually takes about fours years to complete a restoration.
It’s 9:30 a.m. on a recent Tuesday morning, and Building 8 at the Tucson Fire Department’s south-side service center is alive with activity.
A crew of retired firefighters, including three TFD captains, two battalion chiefs and an arson investigator, are sanding ladder rungs and painting cab covers in an effort to breathe new life into some of the city’s earliest fire engines.
The group, known as the ALF/Fox Restoration Team, working under the umbrella of the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation, has resurrected several Tucson fire trucks since taking shape in 2006.
Its greatest hits include a completely restored 1928 Ahrens-Fox, a 1923 American LaFrance pumper and a 1923 American LaFrance ladder truck, all of which will be on display downtown Sunday, Jan. 16, as part of Dillinger Days, the annual event held in and around Hotel Congress celebrating the 1934 capture of notorious gangster John Dillinger in Tucson.
For team member Ted Geare, one of the group’s founders and the unofficial spokesman, the mission is clear.
“Each of us has a different skill set,” Geare said. “But we all have the same passion and interest in giving back and helping to restore Tucson Fire Department history.”
That passion recently received a new lease on life with the acquisition of a 1930 American LaFrance quad, which was once part of the Tucson Fire fleet and, like the other three restored trucks, was on-site during the 1934 Hotel Congress fire that ultimately led to Dillinger’s arrest.
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