They WERE Thinking!

[MG3610]

In all the apparatus we see on here and in our communities, we sure do enough bashing the ridiculous parade rigs that offer no practical value. How about this question. What are some of the design features of apparatus, in your area and nationwide, that are unique and make alot of sense. I'm looking for local specific things that make a rig special to its response area as well as generalized sensible specified features. If the rigs are from your company, can you give some background as to what made you decide to add the features.

[ashfire]

I recently read on the Firehouse website about a fire dept in Japan that bought a firefighting ambulance from the Morita Fire Apparatus Co. maorita119.com. I have looked on the web for info about units here in the US.
Most that come up are ambulances built with small firefighting capabilities that equal a mini pumper and small rescue truck.
I have seen at one time or another full size pumpers built with crew compartments that double as patient treatment and transport vehicles.
I have seen a picture of a unit in a magazine sometime back where a dept had a engine forward Ford pumper with added compartment behind the cab and the pumper body behind that. The loading doors on the rightside.
There was a pumper on display at Firehouse Expo in Baltimore that had a ambulance cot and medical cabinets in the crew compartment.
I was looking to see what departments bought these units and how they man and use them and photos of them.

[Deuce Engine]

Widwater, VA (Stafford County Company 10) had a engine/ambulance back in the mid/late 1990's, but for a number of reasons, they took the stretcher and EMS cabinetry out after a year or so, and replaced them with SCBA seating. It was eventually sold to a broker. I last saw it for sale in Fire Trader.

Winter Haven, FL took delivery of the first modern engines with patient transport capabilities, and that was in the late 1980's. These were built on Ford F800 chassis, with the "telephone booth" behind the cab where the patients would be transported. The idea didn't really stick with them, and they didn't renew the idea when they ordered their next batch of pumpers.

Seagrave built one for a department in Ohio two years ago on a Marauder cab. I'll have to dig through my files for info on that one though...

Hope this helps...

[mohican]

I'll post a pic in a couple of weeks when the truck arrives

We have a new rescue pumper due soon

Reasons for rescue pumper vs just replacing our rescue
1.Gives us another pumper (next newest is 1994 pumper tanker, still in excellent shape)
2.With (especially daytime) manpower, sometimes all we have for initial rollout on a MVA is 2 EMTs for the ambulance, and 2-3 for the rescue truck. Having the dedicated rescue gear on something with pump and water makes things easier.

What we ordered (and why)
Custom Chassis, seating for 6 - We went with custom chassis for reliability over commercial chassis, better protection itshtf, tighter turning radius. The first demo we tried was a mid ship with a very tight turning radius, we have a couple spots in town and out in the country that our engines of commercial chassis won't get into.

1000gpm pump - this allowed a much less expensive pump, in a shorter package. The difference between 1250 and 1000 was about 5k. For what this truck is primarily intended for, plus the fact that it has on board automatic foam system, that is enough pump.

We went with mid mount pump vs top mount vs rear mount :
Top mount would have made truck 2 ft longer.
There was possibly one dealer/brand in the area with rear mount experience. I know that some have been making rear mounts for years, but we were still able to spec the pump/water/compartments we wanted with the tried and true mid mount pump.

Automatic foam system (Hale Foam Logix). No eductors to mess with. No "around the pump". Engage the pump, hit the button for foam, and voila. This foam system is connected to the two preconnected crosslays, and to a front bumper preconnect.

Roll up doors - Many of us have had enough of opening a compartment partway when the truck is close to a guard rail, or stepping down an incline to open the doors when parked by an embankment. The rear compartment doors are lap doors.

Ladders through the tank: saves compartment space. If this was to be the primary structural engine, we would have went with a drop down rack.

Stokesbasket and backboard compartment through the tank: see above

8kw Hydraulic generator - quiet compared to auxillary engine, mounted in dunnage area, uses no compartment space

OnSpot tire chains - worth it in the winter

Hale Foam Logix Foam system - as said earlier, engage pump, and hit button if foam is desired.

Front Bumper preconnect hose line - 2-1/2 outlet, we'll adapt down to 1-3/4 hose.

Officer SCBA seat in front, 4 crew SCBA seats in rear of cab. During pre build visit, we upgraded seats from vinyl to cordura nylon. But they still have those %$#(%*$% mandated rip cords

Plenty of shelving, pull out tool boards, pull out shelves

Rear lights on apparatus body can be mounted on tripods.

Trailer hitch, trailer wiring - we pull a tandem axle (7000#) trailer behind the current truck, with a polaris ranger 6x6 for wildland fires and off road rescues. The trailers will also have racks built for our canoes this winter.

"Traction" tires for the rear duals