A 102-year-old Orange County woman met her mechanical match this week: a fully restored fire engine that’s just as old as she is.
Lois Rufer, 102 and a half by her count, took a ceremonial ride aboard Huntington Beach’s first motorized fire truck—a 1922 Seagrave—on Thursday after her family arranged the visit with the fire department. The two centenarians shared a spin around the Central Net Training Facility in what firefighters called a rare and joyful meeting of living history.
“They wanted to know if I’d be able to ride in it, and I said, ‘I thought I’d be driving it,’” Rufer joked, according to the Orange County Register. Though she didn’t take the wheel, she rang the engine’s bell and used the hand-crank horn from one of its two seats, beaming as the fire engine circled the lot.
Rufer learned about the vintage vehicle from a Register article and mentioned it to her family, who helped make the meeting happen. She’s known in her Fountain Valley community for her humor and independence—she bowled in a league for decades and kept a valid driver’s license until just last year.
The 1922 Seagrave, once the pride of Huntington Beach’s early fire service, was purchased for $14,500—a hefty sum at the time, but far below the $1.3 million it costs for modern engines today. According to city officials, the Seagrave was one of the first motorized fire apparatuses the city ever bought, marking its transition from horse-drawn rigs.
“The vintage Seagrave carried no water of its own and relied instead on a small 30-gallon chemical tank likely filled with a now-unknown fire suppressant,” the Huntington Beach Fire Department explained in a release. “By comparison, today’s engines carry 500 gallons of water, thousands of feet of hose, and powerful 1,500-gallon-per-minute pumps.”
The 1922 Seagrave served Huntington Beach until 1966 before it was donated to L.A.’s Travel Town Museum. It returned home in 2002 thanks to a forklift trade arranged by a former fire chief, and the Huntington Beach Firefighters’ Association took ownership in 2007, launching a 15-year, $100,000 restoration funded entirely by community donations.
“There’s this old story that when the Seagraves were being shipped out of Columbus, Ohio, they got pulled off the train to help fight a big brush fire in San Bernardino County,” said HBFD Captain Rex Rysewyk, who helped lead the restoration. “Once the fire was out, they loaded them back up and delivered them to the local agencies. We don’t know if that happened to ours for sure, but it’s a great piece of legend that adds to the engine’s character.”
One of the most striking discoveries came during that process, when firefighters sanding the hood revealed original, hand-painted murals of a ship and lighthouse hidden beneath layers of paint. Now nicknamed “The Hib” in honor of a 1920s fire chief, the restored engine is on display by appointment at the association’s office.
“Seeing [Rufer] elated and having these two historians with each other is pretty satisfying for me—probably more so than the actual restoration process,” Rysewyk told the Register. “Someone appreciating this, that’s as old as this… You don’t get that opportunity ever.”
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