Pike pole

The head of a pike pole with various implements for pulling items.

The head of a short pike pole

Pike poles are long poles usually 4-12 feet in length used by firefighters to search for fires hidden behind the sheetrock in the walls and ceiling. These days they are made out of fiberglass with metal hooks on the end, and are used to pull items from an area of intense heat and flame, and ventilating structures by breaking windows. In some jurisdictions, it is referred to as a ceiling hook, and is the 'hook' referred to in 'hook and ladder'. These pike poles are also used by linemen.

The pole's original use in the fire service was to pull down walls and neighboring buildings to stop the spread of fire to exposures. The tool can also be used in salvage events in such things as constructing water chutes to displace water.

Pike poles have other uses including reaching, holding or pulling. They have been used helping to lift the sides of a timber framed structure like a barn raising. It is also used in lumbering (i.e., log rafting) to control logs while floating them on a river and/or constructing log rafts. Pike poles used in log rafting were originally made of wood, typically spruce or fir. More modern pike poles (beginning in the mid-1960s) were made of aluminum tubing with a wooden knob to plug the open end, thus keeping them buoyant. Pike poles are also used for rescue work to grab people or objects floating by in a flood for instance.

Pike pole fishing

The pike-pole ice fishing day on the Ural

In the past, the Ural Cossacks used pike poles (known in Russian as bagor) as a tool for fishing for the sturgeon in the Ural River. The pike-pole ice fishing, known as bagrenye, would be allowed on only one day in a year, some time after the Orthodox Christmas. On that day, the Cossacks would break the river ice at the known sturgeon hibernating locations, and pull out the disturbed fish with their pike poles. A successful Cossack would sometimes catch as many as 50 sturgeon on this day, and occasionally a Beluga_(sturgeon) as well.

See also

Firefighting equipment - pike poles, buckets, spades - outside of the former Pammakaristos Church in Istanbul

• Cant hook