The Dennis Dagger is a compact

fire engine A fire engine or fire truck (also spelled firetruck) is a vehicle, usually a specially designed or modified truck, that functions as a firefighting apparatus. The primary purposes of a fire engine include transporting firefighters and water to ...

manufactured by

Dennis Specialist Vehicles Dennis Specialist Vehicles was an English manufacturer of commercial vehicles based in Guildford, building buses, fire engines, lorries (trucks) and municipal vehicles such as dustcarts. All vehicles were made to order to the customer's require ...

from 1998 to 2007. It was built for fire brigades operating in narrow rural areas unsuitable for full-size fire engines, a market previously explored by the Dennis DS series. First designed in 1997 with the internal codename of ''F98'' (short for ''Fire 1998''), production would begin by 2002. Visually and mechanically similar to the full-size Dennis Sabre, the Dennis Dagger could be bodied with a John Dennis Coachbuilders body. Sales were originally aimed at the

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

and Devon and Somerset fire services, but in competition with other narrow truck conversions such as the MAN truck range, the Dagger sold poorly, going on to be the final new fire engine produced by Dennis Specialist Vehicles before the company's closure in 2007. Operators of the Dennis Dagger included the

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

and

West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...

fire brigades, with the

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service is the statute, statutory Fire service in the UK, fire and rescue service covering the county of Merseyside in north-west England and is the statutory Fire and Rescue Authority responsible for all 999 fire br ...

and the

Dublin Fire Brigade Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB; ) is the fire and rescue service and ambulance service for County Dublin, including Dublin city, in Ireland. It is a local authority service, operated by Dublin City Council on behalf of that council and those of Fi ...

respectively operating two former demonstrators in the past. A development chassis was registered as late as 2011. Outside of the UK, the

New Zealand Fire Service The New Zealand Fire Service (, "Service to the People"; also known as the NZFS) was New Zealand's main firefighting body from 1 April 1976 until 1 July 2017 – at which point it was dissolved and incorporated into the new Fire and Emergency ...

is the only known foreign customer and operator of the Dagger, after a pair were ordered as a trial in 2004. One of the ex-demonstrators, which itself had also been operated by the

was purchased by the NZFS a year later in 2005. As of 2025, all three examples remain in service in New Zealand, albeit operated by the NZFS’s successor agency, FENZ. The ex-demonstrator is currently allocated at

Hari Hari Hari Hari (sometimes spelled Harihari) is a small rural settlement in the south west of the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island. It is slightly inland from the Tasman Sea and the Saltwater Lagoon and is situated between the Wanga ...

and the trial Daggers at Springfield and Taumarunui, respectively.

References

{{Dennis Firefighting equipment

Dagger A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually one or two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a cutting or stabbing, thrusting weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or ...

Vehicles introduced in 2002 Vehicles discontinued in 2007

See also

References