Pulaski (tool)

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Head of a Pulaski with a fiberglass handle

The Pulaski (also Pulaski tool or Pulaski ax ) is a special tool for fighting forest fires . It is used primarily in the United States and Canada by fire departments and forest authorities . In recent years the tool has also found its way into German-speaking countries.

The head of the Pulaski combines ax and adze in one tool head. The handle was traditionally made of wood, whereas nowadays plastic or fiberglass is mostly used for weight reasons. The combination of tools enables cutting and digging work and covers a wide range of uses. Among other things , it is used to create firebreaks , laying out hiking trails or other gardening and landscaping work.

The tool is named after Edward Pulaski , a ranger with the United States Forest Service . He introduced the tool to the Forest Service in 1911 in response to the devastating forest fires in Idaho the previous year that revealed the need for specialized forest fire-fighting equipment. Since a comparable tool was introduced by the Collins Tool Company as early as 1876 , it is unclear today whether Pulaski invented the tool or just made it popular. Until the 1920s, the Pulaski was only produced in small series and was known almost exclusively in the Rocky Mountain region . However, it continued to spread and eventually became a standard tool for the United States Forest Service in 1930.

In the meantime, combinations of Pulaski and McLeod are also available in stores under the name Gorgui-Tool .

The collection of the Wallace District Mining Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Wallace , Idaho includes a Pulaski with the initials "EP", which supposedly belonged to Ed Pulaski himself.

See also

literature

  • Ulrich Cimolino, Detlef Maushake, et al .: Fighting vegetation fires . ecomed Sicherheit, Landsberg am Lech, 2015, ISBN 978-3-609-69717-8 .

swell

  1. ↑ a b c United States Forest Service: Fire Management Notes - The True Story of the Pulaski Fire Tool (English, PDF ; 1.38 MB), pp. 19 - 21, on fs.fed.us, accessed on October 11 2016.
  2. ↑ a b Ulrich Cimolino, Detlef Maushake, et al .: Vegetation fire fighting, p. 106ff, ecomed Sicherheit, Landsberg am Lech, 2015, ISBN 978-3-609-69717-8 .
  3. ↑ Information on the Gorgui tool at interschutz.de, accessed on October 11, 2016