Dirty Jobs Visits The San Francisco FD Ladder Shops

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This week's episode of "Dirty Jobs" features Mike visiting the San Francisco FD ladder shops, where they still make and repair all of the department's famous wooden ladders in house.

It's replaying this weekend, and will probaly replay multiple times in the future, as well as on demand on some cable systems.

The episode is:

ONION PROCESSOR

Premiere: Feb. 14, 2012

At Gills Onions, Mike Rowe slices, dices and tastes onions before cleaning out the juicing machine and parts of the reactor. Then, it's off to the San Francisco Fire Department to help build wooden ladders.

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I saw it when it premiered. It was pretty cool. Interesting to know how much work actually goes into making wooden ladders, not to mention the fact that the SFFD still uses them. I think a few reasons they do are due to the trolley wires above the street, their fire resistance, and their long lives, as well as tradition. Only thing is though, I'd imagine they're pretty heavy, especially the 50 footers.

Very unique indeed. I also believe there's a YouTube video about the shops.

On a side note, at the end of the episode, they're putting the new ladder on one of the SFFD's brand new Spartan Crimson tillers.