SAN ANTONIO — A special museum in San Antonio is dedicated to the city’s firefighters. The building that houses the Fire Museum is an old fire station that was built in the 1930s.

“From the firehouse, we ran one engine and two ladder trucks which were stationed here for quite a while,” said retired firefighter and museum volunteer Hector Cardenas. “To us it’s important to tell the history. We lived some of this history, but we didn’t know the original history until we started digging into it.”

Back in the 1800s, the city’s firefighters were volunteers, they started getting paid in the 1890s. In time, firetrucks with engines would replace horse-drawn equipment. Black firefighters joined the force in the 1960s and women fire crews joined the department in 1979. One of the museum’s walls is dedicated to those who died in the line of duty.

“It’s part of the brotherhood that you lose and you don’t ever want to forget them because that’s the biggest sacrifice when you give your life for others,” said Cardenas.

That brotherhood continues to this day at the museum told in pictures, in the old leather fire bucket on display and with the firefighters who came back to teach a little history.

“As long as we have firefighters that dedicated their lives to the profession, I think they’d enjoy staying here and talking about those old days,“ said Cardenas.