What Is The One Thing You Would Like To Change On The Engine

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eric Hankins on June 10, 2008 at 4:25pm

It would be nice to have some options. All of our Engine Companies are set-up the same way no matter the district. The downtown engine should be set up for commercial operations and the outlying engines for more residential. All of our 2 1/2" nozzles are the playpipe type fog nozzles with the butterfly wings. How are you supposed to start an offensive attack with wings?

Anyway, Standardization is nice, but your engine should be set for your district.

Permalink Reply by Gregg Normandin on June 10, 2008 at 4:28pm

There is no such thing as water damage at a fully involved structure. No fire, no damage. As far as too much water, how much is too much? Put enough water on the fire to extinguish it. What are we trying to protect anyway, the contents or the entire building? My feeling is we need to use the smooth bore nozzle more often. It has been told to me that we need the protection of the fog stream. My feeling is that if the fire is put out, there is no need for preotection........ GPM's on the BTU's

Permalink Reply by Ray McCormack on June 10, 2008 at 7:00pm

Gregg - Seems a lot of firefighters recieve bad information from rookie school and beyond. The American fire service has many strong myths that are still making the rounds combined with people in power who could change things but they either don't give a damm or don't know fact from fiction.

Permalink Reply by Art Bloomer on June 10, 2008 at 8:18pm

Ray...great point. We are waiting for our new Squad vehicle that we are putting in my house to replace an engine. Due to height restrictions, we have to mount the ladders on a fold down and out bracket, which means shorter officers side compartments. And since the Squad is going to be more rescue than engine (deep compartments), the tank is narrow, long, and high, putting the hose bed more than 6 1/2 feet off the ground. We carry 800' of 5", 400' static 2 1/2" with 250' strapped ready to go, and 2 1 3/4" pre-connect lines. We will also have 2 crosslays, 1 100' with a fog, and 200' with a fog. All of the lines off the rear will be smooth bore. Needless to say there ain't a whole lot of room for engine related stuff (but the EMS stuff is still there)

Permalink Reply by Lane Pearman on June 10, 2008 at 9:32pm

It seems like now days many departments have fire apparatus that have a serious identity problem. Engines which want to be trucks and trucks which think they are engines. At FDIC this year I was seriously disapointed in that I did not see a single "battle ready" engine on the showroom floor. Many departments seem to be buying into this more is better attitude. 750 gallon booster tanks on urban engines. Hosebeds which require stepladders to access. I would really like to see a return to the basics in engine design.

Permalink Reply by Drew Smith on June 11, 2008 at 12:20am

We bought a pumer in 2001 and tried to get thehose bed down lower but failed. It's a great vehicle but the hose bed is too high. So we tried again and just took delivery of another and this one has a low hose bed. Here is a link to some pictures from the factory. http://www.alexisfire.com/FireEquipment/NewDeliveries/ProspectHeigh...

The upper hose bed carries 1500 ft X 5 inch (we have several non-residences that require this much hose to reach the nearest hydrant).
The lower hose bed (between the ladder chutes) carries 600 ft X 2&1/2 plus some 3 inch for a portable master stream.
Now guys can pull the shoulder loads without reaching up or stepping up onto the tailboard.

We have one pumper in the shop being retrofitted with this tray (it slides out 100% for repacking) and we hope to retro the other pumper January 1.

Permalink Reply by Russ Chapman on June 11, 2008 at 4:19pm

Ray
I would want the hosebeds lower, especially the rear hosebed. We carry static 1 3/4", but only 4 lengths with a SB nozzle on it. The rest are preconnected with TFTs. I would like to at least have LP nozzles. If it were my choice, I would increase the static bed to 6 lengths. I like the idea of choices between SB and fog, but I can see the training issue that low pressure nozzles can bring (kinks)
See you in Aug!
Chip

Permalink Reply by Mike Mullen on June 12, 2008 at 8:17am

I would like to change the qualifications or requirements for the operator. Too many people are in a rush to be certified on everything. One problem in the fire service in general is not understanding the pump operators position or engineers position. Trouble shooting the pump has become a lost art with the implementation of pressure governors. Too often people think that the idle button is the answer to every problem without knowing what is happening to cause the problem. This is a very dangerous move for the people on the nozzle that lose pressure in a hostile environment. Another problem is understanding relay pumping. Volume and pressure concepts, pressure losses, hydrant pressures and volumes available need to be understood. You may have a 1250 pump but is the water system where you work going to be deliver that to you? What is it going to take to get that volume? How many gpm's are you going to need to put out the fire you are coming up to? What is your size up as a pump operator? Do you have enough water available if not where are you going to get it from? And what method can it be delivered?
Sorry if it sounds negative but I have been seeing too many people becoming pump operators that are not ready.

Permalink Reply by Larry Glover on June 13, 2008 at 10:17am

I'll second that. Many of us are taught to be "lever pullers" not operators.

Permalink Reply by Kristofer DeMauro on June 15, 2008 at 8:55am

My rig is a new Pierce, nice truck, all of the bells and whistles you would want on a pumper. The only thing is that it seems like it was not built for a working company. What I mean by this is that there is no place to store PPE in the cab of the truck while you are away from the station.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Buechel on July 8, 2008 at 9:40pm

I would like to have a lower hosebed, but as a department that responds to rural fires as well as those with municipal water, we have the need for more onboard water. (750 gallons onboard Engine 1, and 750 on Engine 2. Ladder 1 has 500.) I would like to have smooth bore nozzles on our attack lines, but many of the higher ups in the department will never let that happen due to the fact that they "use too much water", or "those are for the big city departments, not ours." It would be nice to get some of the truck tools off the engine, (PPV, Vent saw, Rotary saw, etc.) We are lucky as we do not have any EMS equipment on our Engines. We run our ambulance crew to every fire, but the Engine 2 only responds to MVA incidents. We are also pretty lucky in that thought we don't have set companies, our engineers that respond are veterans who have no problem troubleshooting on the fly. But, sometimes we do have some guys we have to babysit on-scene. But that is somthing we are working on.

Permalink Reply by Russ Chapman on July 9, 2008 at 8:00am

Jeff
"Too much water"?!!!! I feel for you Bro. It is obvious that these guys forgot the first principal of putting out the fire....it is not how much total water you put on the fire, it is the rate you flow, i.e. a 180 GPM SB nozzle flowed for only about 5 to 10 seconds will only flow about 50 gallons, enough for a R+C fire. I see pictures and have witnessed this principal in action many times when a rural FD tries to conserve water while 5 hours later they are mopping up hot spots in the basement, because that is all that is left. Keep up the pressure, and set up some tests. . If you don't have enough water to support an interior attack, at full flows, then the Brothers don't belong in the building in the first place. So...show them with flow meters and inline gauges how mis informed they are. Be safe and don't give up.

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