A long time ago I used to work for the fire brigade in my city.
At one stage they used to have a bicycle as one of their official vehicles. It was unofficially referred to as "Fremantle first bicycle"
It was used during the era of steam trains when burning coal would occasionally fall from a train and cause problems. There was a rail bridge over a river and the only way to get to a common point where the problem occurred was by bicycle and on foot. So they would turn out a junior firefighter on the bike with a bucket of water.
The story is told more formally
here.
More recently I was told a story by an officer who turned out on foot one dark and stormy night when all the appliances were busy attending alarm calls. He ran up the road from the main station to the hospital to respond to a fire alarm. They were somewhat bemused to have a single person huffing and puffing rather than several appliances and about 12 firefighters that was the normal response (it was a false alarm).
