The axes are typical "fire axes" used by the fire services. Widely used before the introduction of power tools for accessing burning structures. Still used as as a backup tool for large department (for when the motorized version crap out) and the primary tool for poorer rural departments. The spike is used for starting a hole in a door so the axe can bite in and chop better, popping the lock on a door with a blow to the key area of the door or for prying up roof decking from the rafters underneath after chopping through the shingles and roof decking. You might or might not be surprised how well putting that spike into a deadbolt mechanism will bust a locked door open,
Typical fire axe
The primary axe used in woodland fires (such as what the Park Service usually fights) since 1911 has been the pulaski axe or pulaski tool. Fire axe on one side, mattock on the other. While similar to the standard mattaxe or mattock axe or cutter axe, the pulaski differs from it in two ways - First, the mattock part on a pulaski is wider and "sharper", being designed more for cutting wood (roots) that working dirt, as with a standard mattock. The second difference is the axe side, which is a smaller, wedge shaped bit rather than a fire axe bit.
Top = Pulaski axe
Cutter axe / Mattock axe / Mattaxe
Everytime I have worked with the Park Service in Texas, they had Pulaskis, not regular fire axes on their vehicles. My fire departments have gotten regular fire axes from the Texas Forestry Service, but only as used items that came from major fire departments (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, etc) not for wild land fire axe use.
If your axes do not have a manufacturer's name hidden under the paint, then the only way I know of to find out who made them would be to
- determine when they were initially bought by the Park Service (assuming they really came from the Park Service)
- dig out the purchase contract fulfillment documents which identify the source(s) for equipment provided in fulfillment of a specific purchase order.
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