Nordic Systems

Nordic Systems was a fire truck manufacturer located in Mississauga, Ontario.

History
Nordic was formed in Port Credit, Ontario (now part of Mississauga) as Nordic Steel Products in 1947. Originally a repairer and builder of tank trucks, Nordic started working with a separate company, Dyer & Miller Brothers, when D&M became the Canadian Agent for Fire Control Engineering's Fire Boss line. Nordic also started producing petroleum and chemical handling apparatus, as well as hose reels, valves and other equipment.

Nordic entered the fire apparatus field in 1968 with the delivery of a municipal pumper to the Orangeville Fire Department. Other deliveries followed in the late 1960s and 1970s, including some pumpers equipped with Tele-Squrts and LTI aerial devices.

In the mid-1970s, the company expanded into, and eventually specialized in, apparatus for industry and airports. Dyer & Miller was purchased by Nordic in 1974, and the company formed a new division called CDN (Combined Dyer & Miller Nordic) Research and Development Limited to produce foam systems and dry chemical units under the Foam Boss name. Crash trucks were delivered to airports across Canada, as well as to other countries. Nordic entered into partnerships with Oshkosh, using Oshkosh chassis to build an order of trucks for the Canadian Department of National Defence and another with American LaFrance in an unsuccessful attempt to build a line of airport crash tenders. Industrial trucks, also equipped with Tele-Squrts were delivered to oil refineries in various regions of the country.

In 1982, Nordic drastically cut the number of complete trucks built and instead concentrated on components, delivering twin agent and dual agent units to other manufacturers. The company underwent a series of ownership changes in the 1980s and 1990s, and was exporting refueler hose reels to the American military.

Nordic's last ownership change appears to have occurred in 1991 when it was purchased by Reelcraft Industries. In 2006, manufacturing was consolidated at Reelcraft's Indiana facility, where Reelcraft makes large frame reels under that name. It appears that the Mississauga plant, which had been in operation since 1959, was closed at that time.