05/26/2026
He spent 9 Years Restoring a 1915 Fire Engine Just Like the one his father once drove
For Wes Melo, this Ford Model T fire engine is far more than an antique machine; it’s a lifelong connection to family, service, and history.
His story begins in childhood, in a garage filled with tools, grease, and quiet determination. Wes’s father, a volunteer fire chief in Mount Shasta, California, spent years restoring a 1915 fire engine. To young Wes, it wasn’t just a project; it was magic.
While other kids played with toy firetrucks, he climbed aboard the real thing.
And sitting beside his father, watching that engine come back to life, something clicked.
That moment shaped his future.
Wes would go on to serve more than 24 years as a volunteer firefighter and fire chief himself, following in his father’s footsteps.
He had always hoped that one day, the fire engine would be his.
But life took a different turn.
While Wes was serving overseas in the Army during the 1960s, his father placed the restored engine in a museum. The dream slipped away, at least for a while.
Decades later, in 1999, sitting at a computer with his daughter, Wes stumbled upon something unbelievable: an advertisement for a 1915 American LaFrance/Model T fire engine for sale in New Mexico.
Without hesitation, he flew to Las Cruces, bought the truck for $10,000, rented a vehicle, and brought it home.
But what he brought back wasn’t a showpiece.
It was a wreck.
The engine had once served the city of Las Cruces until 1934, before being discarded in a scrapyard. It had been originally built as a Model T, later converted into a chemical fire engine by American LaFrance in Elmira, New York, a cutting-edge firefighting tool of its time, using chemical pressure to force water through hoses.
Now, it needed saving all over again.
Wes didn’t know much about restoration, but he knew how to commit. He reached out to historians, mechanics, and anyone who could help. Piece by piece, year by year, he brought the engine back to its original condition.
The process took nine years.
And what he discovered along the way made the journey even more extraordinary: his fire engine is believed to be the second-oldest surviving example of its kind in the world.
To Wes, that means something deeper.
These machines represent a turning point in history when fire departments began moving from horse-drawn equipment to motorized engines. They weren’t just vehicles. They were lifesavers.
He estimates that engines like this one could handle the majority of fires they responded to.
And how many lives were saved because of them?
Countless.
Today, Wes has gone on to restore additional Model T fire engines from 1919 and 1923. But the 1915 engine remains the heart of it all.
Because for him, this isn’t just about restoring a vehicle.
It’s about honoring a legacy.
A father. A calling. And a machine that once raced toward danger, long before most of the world even imagined such things were possible.
