Original Item: Only One Available. This is a wonderful late 19th century French Casque de Pompiers, or Fire Brigade helmet. It has leather backed scales and ornate ear roundels. It features a high comb and wonderfully ornate helmet plate with a flaming bomb in the center, surrounded by a half laurel half oak leaf wreath. There is a “Castle” at the top, and crossed axes and other firefighter motifs in the plate.
There is a baller at the bottom of the plate that reads: SRS POMPIERS D’ EMERINGES, short for Sapeurs Pompiers de Émeringes. This translates to “Firefighters of Émeringes”, or more succinctly, “Émeringes Fire Brigade”. Émeringes is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France.
The liner is completely missing, as is the cockade or hackle, and the helmet has minor denting throughout the shell. Overall a very appealing Fire Brigade helmet that dates from before the turn of the 20th century. Very nice, and ready to display!
Pompier (firefighter) etymologically comes from the concept of pumping (water) & refers to the manual pumps that were originally used to fight fires.
Srs or Sapeur means “sapper” & refers to the 1st official firefighting unit created by Napoleon I which was part of the military engineering arm.