Straight sticks

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chad Berg on April 16, 2009 at 7:11pm

I have heard this one before and it's a great question.

Our apparatus has a 6" x 6" quarts light mounted on each side of the tip about 18" back from the last rung. They only times that they have gotten in the way for myself is when I've had to shoot through tree branches. the get tilted/pointed the wrong way or just collect leaves and small twigs. With 18" of setback, they are not close enough to the tip to be a problem when taking out an upper floor window for ventilation.

I actually appreciate them on there for the purpose of ventilation - they light up a pretty big area of the roof which can be especially helpful when first making access to the roof (especially flat roof operations)

If they are angle down while the aerial is bedded, they help to guage depth perception when the tip is approaching the parapit. When the beam of light goes froma 30' diameter to about a 2' diameter.........you are there or about to come in contact. At the turntable this can be very helpful when positioning the tip.

We run a fair amount of MVC's (car accidents) and I can hit the lights off of the onboard generator and it helps to illuminate the scene even though the ladder is obviously cradled. These two with the additional side mounted lights on the body, turn night into day.

All in all, I don't mind them, and if spec'd and mounted correctly, can really help in "most" operations.

Permalink Reply by Gary Rauch on April 21, 2009 at 9:04pm

Thanks Chad, I was just throwing a thought out there.

Chad Berg said:

I have heard this one before and it's a great question.

Our apparatus has a 6" x 6" quarts light mounted on each side of the tip about 18" back from the last rung. They only times that they have gotten in the way for myself is when I've had to shoot through tree branches. the get tilted/pointed the wrong way or just collect leaves and small twigs. With 18" of setback, they are not close enough to the tip to be a problem when taking out an upper floor window for ventilation.

I actually appreciate them on there for the purpose of ventilation - they light up a pretty big area of the roof which can be especially helpful when first making access to the roof (especially flat roof operations)

If they are angle down while the aerial is bedded, they help to guage depth perception when the tip is approaching the parapit. When the beam of light goes froma 30' diameter to about a 2' diameter.........you are there or about to come in contact. At the turntable this can be very helpful when positioning the tip.

We run a fair amount of MVC's (car accidents) and I can hit the lights off of the onboard generator and it helps to illuminate the scene even though the ladder is obviously cradled. These two with the additional side mounted lights on the body, turn night into day.

All in all, I don't mind them, and if spec'd and mounted correctly, can really help in "most" operations.

Permalink Reply by Adam Bean on May 10, 2009 at 6:22pm

Gary, I've never had the opportunity to be on a truck ordering committee however have worked with trucks that were spec'ed by others and wondered the excact same thing. From asking guys that were on the committees the most frequent answer I've heard was that alot of it is stock off the line and you actually have to specify to remove it from the basic manufacturers specs and they just didnt think of it. The other thing is we dont have the opportunity to purchase new trucks very often, maybe even once or twice in a career so most people arent profficient in the process.

Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault (ret) on September 17, 2009 at 8:19pm

-Hey Gary, I could not agree more with you. I would suggest that you take a look at the other discussion in this group Aerial and Parapet Access.
-The one thing I try to impart to firefighters assigned to aerials is that unlike our Tower Ladder Brothers, the aerial is not a work platform or tool staging area. Rather it is intended as an access device to rapidly deploy and/or recover firefighters and to rescue victims.
-Hope you take a look at my post on the other discussion.

Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on September 28, 2009 at 9:21am

We have quartz lights at the tip of our main, but I really appreciate them when we're stepping off of the main on to a dark roof. We do not have any of the other stuff that I have seen on other sticks(discharges, electrical boxes, etc...)

We also have a pick head, a 6 ft hook and a 16 ft roof ladder mounted about 3 ft down from the last rung. They have never been in the way when we use the main to pop a window or when we need to get on a roof.

I have never used the lights to light up an MVA scene, but thanks to Chad Berg we're going to try it the very next chance we get. Thanks