New home for fire museum
Okaihau’s Northland Firehouse Museum has moved to Kaikohe, and is now ready for visitors.
Brian Denton founded the museum — his pride and joy — just outside Okaihau, where it remained until the property was sold last year, and the collection had to find a new home. It is now open to the public again at 22 Rankin St, Kaikohe.
The Northland Firehouse Museum Trust, described by Mr Denton as a hobby that got out of control, acquires, restores and displays fire appliances, along with uniforms, helmets, rank markings, badges, patches and fire safety items, and a special 9/11 exhibit.
“We’ve put the collection back together and we’re open again. We’ve got exactly the same sort of displays in the new building, and it’s really good to be back up and running again,” he said.
It all began as a hobby when Brian and Lesley Denton’s son Mark decided he wanted to be a fireman when he grew up. The doting parents bought him a model fire engine, then another and another, and things expanded from there.
Mark became a firefighter, and the museum’s collection continued to grow.
The oldest firefighting appliance in the collection is a quad used by the Forest Service in the early 1900s, the most modern dating back to the early 1980s.
And a hobby it might once have been, but the collection has become an international attraction. And Mr Denton hopes to expand it further now that it has moved to Kaikohe.
In 2012 the museum was runner-up in the Heritage and Environment category in the Trustpower Far North Community Awards. ■ For more information and opening times, check out the Northland Firehouse Museum Facebook page or call (09) 401-1100.