as you can see, the gear is very weathered. >> how old? >> this gear is only a couple years old. >> but it gets beat up quick. >> oh yeah. got one new coat hanging in there, so there's a lucky guy that's got a new coat. but that gear's seen a lot of action. >> where's the fire pole, dude? >> they took them. >> aw, man. >> in the late '90s, management took the poles out. >> what does every little boy, from my age, it was all about sparky the fire dog and the poles. >> you know i used to love sliding the pole in the headquarters was three stories. so when you were sliding that thing, you had to really hold on cause you were going for a ride. the old running board, we put up here. we don't use the running board, but this is how many companies we used to have. >> what percentage of that number now? >> less than half. and we're fighting a lot more fires.