BURBANK : Steam-Pumper Fire Engine Still Raring to Go

What do you do with an 88-year-old firefighter named Christy whose fire-fighting days are over? Put her on display.

That’s what members of the Burbank Fire Department did Thursday with Christy, a one-of-a-kind antique horse-drawn steam engine featured at the Burbank Media Center Mall through Sunday.

The display is part of the department’s celebration of National Fire Prevention Week.

“Not only is it a museum piece, we take it out and operate it,” said Capt. Richard Fischer. “There are only six of them left in the country, and ours is the only one that drives and pumps.”

Fischer and his fellow firefighters drove the fire engine, which was converted to a gasoline-powered front wheel drive in 1915, five blocks to the mall.

Christy is being displayed with other firefighting equipment, uniforms and videos highlighting fire prevention techniques.

The display will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day, with free smoke detectors and fire extinguishers given away during drawings.

Fire prevention videotapes also will be given away to children who participate in an art contest and win a drawing.

Burbank firefighters hope that the display not only makes more people aware of ways they can prevent fires in their homes, but gives them a greater appreciation for the machinery used to save those homes.

Named after her motorized drive, Christy originally served the Los Angeles Fire Department, whose firefighters stoked her steam pumps with coal and kindling to gush out water at 500 gallons a minute.

In 1928, Christy joined Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where she began a career as a movie star alongside such notable comedians as the Three Stooges and Charlie Chaplin, Fischer said. For most steam-powered fire engines, however, the careers ended in World War II, when they were melted down for bronze and other metal scrap for the war effort.

Burbank firefighters eventually rescued Christy and another antique engine, a 1913 chain-driven Morlan, from the Warner lot several years ago, where they had been sent out to pasture.

The two have been restored to their original finish so that they can be displayed and occasionally compete in statewide firemen’s games. But only Christy is in working order right now, so the Morlan is not on display.

Does that mean that we might someday see Christy barreling down the road toward some mini-mall? Not likely, Fischer said.

“If there was some real kind of catastrophe, we could take it out as long as we had coal or wood to fuel the steam pump,” he said.

But daily runs to flaming mini-malls would provide too much wear-and-tear.

“The trouble with these things is if you break something, you don’t go to Pep Boys and buy the part,” Fischer said.