Hey Joel,

This is what our company members have to do to be a pump operator/driver on our apparatus.( with manual gates) see operator/second asst eng. and the evaluation form for each time on the road(condensed to our requirements ) All courses are required before entering the position. They also must attend and operate at the MCFA FF 1 putting it all together live burn with 3 Engines, 2 trucks in operation, twice. This is a live structure fire scenero in a 2 story masonary burn building. This builds confidence and reasures their capabilities for the real deal.

Hope this helps!

STAFE SAFE !! Dennis

This is what happens when the guys that ride the rigs don't get a say in how the rig will be built. Everybody has a better idea and our rig has to be better and fancier than our neighbors

Amen brother. It seems that in our area there is so much of the "My truck is better than your truck" that they have stopped being functional. We have had our newest engine for about a year now and it is the first in our district to have the electronic pump panel. The largest concern that our personel have about the engine is that when it does malfunction, and we all know that it is "when" not "if", there is no way to override the system.

Also, the newer personel who are trained to operate the engine will be completely lost when it comes to pumping any other truck in our district. I believe it is very important to train our new drivers on a "knobs and levers engine" first so that they understand all of the concepts behind pumping before they rely on presets and the push of a button. I truly believe that the electronic pump panel is dangerous and will get someone very hurt or worse.