Peter Trowbridge, age 11, of Visalia, Calif., for his question:

HOW DOES A FIRE TRUCK PUMP WATER?

One of the worst fires in history happened in London in 1666. More than 13,000 buildings were burned and many thousands were left homeless. For the first time, people started to think seriously about fire protection and fire prevention. Laws, after that big fire, were passed controlling the construction of buildings and also the manner in which they were occupied.

First firefighting efforts, actually, go back to earliest civilization. Volunteer fighters existed in ancient Egypt.

Bucket brigades were used during the colonial period in North America, but they weren't too effective. One row of volunteers passed buckets from the source of the water to the fire while a second row passed back the empty buckets for refilling. It wasn't a great method for putting out a fire.

Hand operated water pumps were first developed in the late 1600s. They were mounted on wheels and had long handles that firefighters pumped up and down to build pressure in the water storage tanks. With hoses attached to the tanks, water could be sprayed some distance.

For more than 100 years, volunteers strained to haul the crude pumps to fires. Then in the mid 1800s they began using teams of horses to pull the fire fighting equipment.

A first self propelled fire engine was made in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1852. It was driven by a steam ¬powered engine and its acceptance across North America was great. By the turn of the century thousands of communities were served by fire trucks that used steam both to move the equipment through the town and also to pump water out of the truck and onto fires.

Early in 1900 fire trucks with gasoline¬driven engines were introduced and they quickly replaced the steam powered equipment that had been so popular.

With gasoline driven equipment, firemen were able to immediately start for a fire when the alarm was sounded. It wasn't necessary for them to wait for steam pressure to build up in the fire engine.

Gasoline engines also provide ample power to pump great quantities of water at very high pressures, making them more efficient than any other type ofequipment.

Modern pumper trucks have huge tanks that can shoot 1,000 gallons of water a minute through hose lines. The quads, or four purpose fire trucks, also carry pumps and in addition have ladders, hose lines and water tanks. Pumps are also included on the aerial ladder fire trucks, the kind that can extend ladders as high as 100 feet by motors on the trucks.