Santa Clara Fire Museum
Santa Clara Fire Museum
On Sunday D. and I wanted to find an indoor activity due to the smoke from the severe wildfires still raging to the north, rather than take our usual walk outdoors in a nature preserve. Our first choice, a historic house in Santa Clara, did not allow photography. We were stunned at this rule, but had no choice but to find an alternate place to go.
We decided to head over to the Santa Clara Fire Museum, because fire is foremost in our minds these days, and we thought it would be cool to see antique and historical fire-fighting equipment.
We arrive at the site of the museum, the training center complex.
A firefighter from the center has to let us in the locked gate to access the museum, which is run by volunteers.
One of the old fire trucks sitting outside.
But the museum is locked up tight! No one answers the door. They are supposedly open Sundays, but we are out of luck for some reason. Anyway, we are left to our own devices. So we explore what we can on the grounds outside.
A danger sign is slowly corroding on a tank next to the museum building.
Around the corner we find an interesting tableau of equipment used at the training center.
From what we can gather, worn-out hoses are saved and fashioned into humaniform dummies and used in addition to the more usual dummies for rescue practice.
Cones! Perhaps they are gathering here prior to their fall migration.
The drill tower.
Another hose dummy sits next to the tower entrance.
Inside the training tower entrance.
On the floor is a rescue scenario of posed dummies. (There are also a few other rooms with different configurations of furniture and dummies.)
The stairs going up into the tower are creepy.
Looking straight up inside the tower.
A sign on the outside of the tower.
The sun on a cracked windshield casts shadows inside a wrecked car used to practice vehicular rescues.
The day was still relatively young when we'd seen all we wanted to see there, so from there we went on to visit the nearby James Lick Mansion.
.
On Sunday D. and I wanted to find an indoor activity due to the smoke from the severe wildfires still raging to the north, rather than take our usual walk outdoors in a nature preserve. Our first choice, a historic house in Santa Clara, did not allow photography. We were stunned at this rule, but had no choice but to find an alternate place to go.
We decided to head over to the Santa Clara Fire Museum, because fire is foremost in our minds these days, and we thought it would be cool to see antique and historical fire-fighting equipment.
We arrive at the site of the museum, the training center complex.
A firefighter from the center has to let us in the locked gate to access the museum, which is run by volunteers.
One of the old fire trucks sitting outside.
But the museum is locked up tight! No one answers the door. They are supposedly open Sundays, but we are out of luck for some reason. Anyway, we are left to our own devices. So we explore what we can on the grounds outside.
A danger sign is slowly corroding on a tank next to the museum building.
Around the corner we find an interesting tableau of equipment used at the training center.
From what we can gather, worn-out hoses are saved and fashioned into humaniform dummies and used in addition to the more usual dummies for rescue practice.
Cones! Perhaps they are gathering here prior to their fall migration.
The drill tower.
Another hose dummy sits next to the tower entrance.
Inside the training tower entrance.
On the floor is a rescue scenario of posed dummies. (There are also a few other rooms with different configurations of furniture and dummies.)
The stairs going up into the tower are creepy.
Looking straight up inside the tower.
A sign on the outside of the tower.
The sun on a cracked windshield casts shadows inside a wrecked car used to practice vehicular rescues.
The day was still relatively young when we'd seen all we wanted to see there, so from there we went on to visit the nearby James Lick Mansion.
.