15,000 match sticks: Amazing replica of fire engine

THERE'S a certain irony to a model fire truck being made out of match sticks but for model maker Ian Walker, there's few better materials with which to work.

THERE'S a certain irony to a model fire truck being made out of match sticks but for budding model maker Ian Walker, there's few better materials with which to work.

Mr Walker painstakingly joined 15,000 match sticks to create a replica of a classic Ford fire engine which he last week presented to the Toowoomba Fire Brigade Museum at the Highfields Pioneer Village.

The model is the fifth creation of Mr Walker's, and now takes pride of place at the museum.

Mr Walker met retired firefighter and museum supporter Pieter de Kroon when the pair was in hospital in January this year, leading to a new friendship and the discovery of Mr Walker's emerging talents.

Mr Walker said he'd taken up model making in his retirement and, on learning Mr de Kroon was a retired firefighter, wanted to donate his latest project.

SPECIAL GIFT: Inspecting the match stick model of an early 1900s Ford fire engine are Toowoomba Fire Brigade Museum's Pieter de Kroon and maker Ian Walker. Picture: Nev Madsen

"It's a beautiful example of a Ford fire engine with a wheeled escape ladder on it," Mr de Kroon said.

Mr Walker started out as a carpenter and joiner before retiring as an engineer - a career which instilled in him valuable skills to make the models.

"I've been doing them for about four or five years; this is the fifth model I've made," Mr Walker said.

"I'd only started doing this in the last few years in my retirement.

"It's something to do other than the gardening."

Originally published as 15,000 match sticks: Amazing replica of fire engine