J.B. Weedon, Milk Vendor, at Waihi Beach in the 1940s with his rousie are pictured where the Waihi Beach Hotel is today. His horse was also called Jack.

The first fire engine was a trailer hitched to a brigade member’s ute carrying the portable pump and hoses. The trailer was built around an axle from Heather and Terry Christini’s old Hillman car. (The car itself was no longer working and had been set alight for firefighting practice.)

All the firefighters had tow bars on their cars, and when the siren went off, the first to arrive at the garage would hitch up the trailer. Later the brigade got a water truck, and after that a Land Rover Fire Appliance.

The siren was on a pole near the camping ground and tested at 12 p.m. each Saturday. Someone had to get a box from the garage and climb onto it to activate it.

In 1977 a remit was submitted to the Fire Service Conference by the Athenree aux Fire Brigade for woman to be recognised for Service Honours.

Doreen Garlick, Heather Christini and later Leone Pickard became the countries first official woman fire fighters.

Uniforms were “scrounged” and the woman, like the men, had helmets, steel capped knee high gumboots, woollen trousers and big heavy hot coats.

The women made their own dress uniforms for formal occasions – long black shirts, white shirts and bow ties.

Keith Birchall put reflector tapes along the side of the engine so that it was more visible. This practice was later adopted nationally by the New Zealand Fire Service.

There is a plaque on an original wall inside the building which says

In Memory of Keith Birchall

Founder and first C.F.0.

Athenree

5 July 1975 to 22nd May 2003.

Today the brigade has 28 members, seven being women.