Bourkes Fire Helmet

Bourkes Fire Helmet .The MSA Cairns N5A New Yorker Deluxe Leather Helmet is a product that is not just a piece of equipment, but a symbol of tradition and honor. This helmet is the epitome of craftsmanship and durability, designed to provide the highest level of protection for those who put their lives on the line every day.
The Cairns N5A New Yorker Deluxe Leather Helmet comes with a Bourke eye shield, a feature that offers superior eye protection without compromising visibility. This helmet also includes a removable flannel inner liner, providing an extra layer of comfort and protection. The liner can be easily remove for cleaning or replacement, ensuring your helmet remains fresh and comfortable even after extended use.

Bourkes Fire Helmet

The helmet also features a carve eagle shield holder, reflecting the bravery and dedication of those who wear it.

The Cairns N5A New Yorker Deluxe Leather Helmet comes in two sizes: medium (6 1/2″-7 3/8″) and large (7 1/2″-8″). Please call for availability on colors. Note that goggles are  not  selling  separately.

The leather helmet of choice for Ocean City FOOLS is the Cairns & Brother New Yorker N5A.

Although not a required component of the helmet, those of us who truly live the tradition wear a brass eagle adornment that graces the top of the helmet and secures its front piece. In our simple, childish way, we always believed that the eagle adorning our helmet meant something special, maybe the spirit of American enterprise, or onward to victory. We were wrong. The eagle, it seems, just happened, and has no particular significance at all. Long, long ago, around 1825 to be exact, an unknown sculptor did a commemorative figure for the grave of a volunteer fireman.

Bourkes Fire Helmet

You can see it in Trinity Churchyard today; it shows the hero issuing from the flames, his trumpet in one hand, a sleeping babe in the other, and on his helmet, an eagle. Firefighters were not wearing eagles at the time; it was a flight of pure fancy on the sculptor’s part. But as soon as the firemen saw it, they thought it was a splendid idea and it was widely adopted.

It has remained on firemen’s helmets ever since, in spite of the fact that it has proved, frequently and conclusively, to be a dangerous and expensive ornament indeed. The sticks up in the air. It catches its beak in window sashes, on telephone wires. It is always getting dented, bent and knocked off. Every so often, some realist points out how much safer and cheaper it would be to do away with the eagle, but we who live the tradition always refuse