Great setup! Sadly an all-too common occurrence nowadays...

Neat looking display! Those firemen look well made and really nicely detailed.

Nice set--up. Makes me think of the pictures of all those wildfires in California. Hoping Sammy and all of the firefighters are staying safe as they battle those fires.

They are! I was delighted when I saw them and realized what they were. There are quite a few sets of firefighter figures out there, but few wildland crews (Woodland Scenics' Smoke Jumpers in HO scale being one). They're actually known as BMPM, or Battaillon de Marins-Pompiers de Marseille; Marseille, along with much of the French Riviera coast is like southern California, and these firefighters, like those in SoCal, do it all: urban, rural, wildland... I always (not exactly correctly) associate them mostly with wildfire, but these guys in particular are wearing wildland helmets and nomex hoods, and the yellow-vested officer has a topo map in his hand. Oh, and then there are the hose packs....that's kinda a giveaway. They are a branch of the French Navy* (they have fire boats too..). The figures are 1/43 scale, perfect for most of my wildland engine collection. Verrrrry expensive for a 5-figure/7-piece set, though. Hope they have a set of these same agency folks in firefighting postures with hose and the like...but haven't seen any yet.

*The fire department in Paris is a branch of the Army. The rest of the country's fire services are civilians organized/trained under the Ministry of the Interior, Civil Defense Directorate (Securite Civile).


The Peugeot (Solido) is in the French Forest Service livery, as are the other two trucks seen in part earlier. Don't seem to have a BMPM model engine....need to add one to my want list.

a really good presentation.

Got another set of figures on the way. This time, they're from the Securité Civile (Civil Defense agency). Took some diligence to find an online dealer that still had the set in stock....sold out in quite a few European hobby shops/sites. They are limited edition sets. There may still be another wildland set from a different fire service....I saw it listed but can't remember what region or agency.

Also ran into an old 'problem' I have with different manufacturers and the scales they assign to their models. I have a bunch of supposedly 1/43 fire models, clearly marked on the model and/or packaging, but when I put these 1/43 figures up against some of them, the model and figures are quite definitely NOT the same scale. It's the same old argument, too...Matchbox and Hot Wheels are often called "1/64" but when compared to, say, Code 3 models (which I take to be TRUE 1/64) and GreenLight, there's often no comparison. The 3-inch cars aren't always "1/64"...period.

Blair,

Great scene with the Firefighters and Solido forestry rigs.

its funny with the 1/64 scale issue, I remember a time when MBX and HW was referred to in catalogs and magazines as 3” die-cast, but in recent years people have decided to assign it a scale rather then refer to it as what it really is= Scaled to the 3” Package.

Nice setup! I looked into the figurines--40EUR plus shipping (probably $10 US or more) is absolutely bonkers. But then again, I've had the HO Preiser "Rescue Set" on my list since Preiser announced it in 2015, then came out with it just last year, which includes a Lukas "Jaws" Unit; and that's $25-30 alone.

I know Solido made a large variety of French fire apparatus, but I had not seen those before. I think Solido, by far, made the most variety of anyone when it comes to French rigs. Lots of castings, and a number of departments as well; in addition to what they are also well known for, military equipment (and military emergency rigs). They are mostly inexpensive, and I plan to add a few. The ACMAT VLRA brush rig is going to be my first.