The Michelin Foundation jury fell in love with the two motor pumps kept at the fire station. Explanations.
The Saint-Julien-Chapteuil fire station is now on “the road to the largest museum in France”. This is how the foundation for the preservation of French art, financed by the Michelin group, names all the winning works of its restoration prizes. The application submitted by the Capitoline Firefighters Association received the jury prize. A grant of 8,000 euros is promised for the restoration of two motor pumps.
For 6 years, the foundation has been mobilizing employees from its 15 production sites in France to offer local works that deserve restoration. The 80 candidate works nationally were submitted to votes by the group's 600 employees last January.
The Altiligrian panel presented many liturgical works, but not only that. Employees at the Blavozy site had to choose between 8 preselected works. A carved wooden frame by Pierre Vanneau and coffered leaves which adorned the main portal of the Saint-Honorat church in Chilhac received the most votes. But the foundation wanted to reward the mobilization of employees at the Blavozy site by awarding the jury prize to a second project. The 2024 jury, led by Mathieu Deldicque, heritage curator at the Condé and Domaine de Chantilly museum, chose the two Guinard brand motor pumps, kept in the Saint-Julien-Chapteuil barracks. The love of mechanics, dear to the heart of the Michelin group, certainly weighed in the balance.
Display them in a window for the centenary
The two Guinard brand motor pumps, one 30 m³ and the other 60 m³, recall a time when firefighters had to be ingenious to deal with material issues. The smallest was inside a Lafly van. “When the truck was scrapped, the firefighters decided to keep it by adapting it to the chassis of an old motor pump from the 1950s. This made it possible to have an additional, towable motor pump. The device was used until the eighties. I went to the fire with it,” remembers Jean-Pierre Exbrayat, volunteer firefighter for 39 years, center head for 18 years and current president of the former firefighters. The machine was definitively reformed before the departmentalization of the emergency organization and the creation of the Haute-Loire departmental fire and rescue service.
Impossible for the firefighters to get rid of the two devices. “We kept them, telling ourselves that one day we could restore them. » And then the space ran out and the two Guinards found themselves outside, next to the garage doors. The Michelin subsidy, which must be delivered at the beginning of December, will finance their restoration. “It’s mostly bodywork and engine cleaning.” It will then be necessary to choose a location to exhibit them and build a display case for them so that they are accessible to the public. The objective is to have everything ready for the centenary of the Saint-Julien firefighters which will be celebrated this summer.
Celine Demars
France
