A Lauderhill (FL) Fire Rescue truck has been left damaged after someone shot at it while crews responded to a call, WSVN.com reported.

A paramedic saw the gunman, and it turned into quite a scare for the first responders, the report said.

On Friday, the crew of Rescue 30 of Lauderhill Fire Rescue’s fire truck was en route to help a person who was suffering chest pains when it was shot multiple times in the area of Northwest 19th Street and 31st Avenue, according to the report.

Three paramedics were said to have been inside the truck at the time of the shooting. The truck had to stop its run and another truck was called, delaying the response time for the person with chest pains.

According to authorities, the damage the truck sustained was to the engine compartment, near the radiator. After the shooting, Rescue 30 went to a fire station and called police. It has since been towed away as evidence, the report said.

Apparatus ideas BOB VACCARO

The Hauppauge Fire Department, located on Long Island, NY, was created in 1931 at the direction of 14 charter members. Since that time, the community has grown immensely.

It now has five schools, strip shopping centers, restaurants, and hotels and is home to the Hauppauge Industrial Park, the nation’s second largest, with more than 1,000 businesses employing more than 55,000 people. Add this to the 7,300 households and a population of more than 20,000 residents, and you have a response district larger than some major U.S. cities.

The Hauppauge Fire District had kept pace with the community’s growth by being proactive in apparatus purchases in the past several years.

“When it came to designing a new heavy rescue for the department, we wanted to make a great deal of improvements,” Louis Zarra, former chief and present fire commissioner, says. “We were replacing our older rescue, which served the department well since 1999. It was a Spartan Saulsbury with a walk-in body, which we really liked.”

Zarra says the fire district along with the apparatus committee, comprised of senior members, former chiefs, and senior officers, started the design process back in 2017 and looked at several vehicles built with the walk-around concept.

“We wanted these individuals to share their knowledge and opinions so we would have a vehicle built that would work for everyone,” Zarra says. “Eventually, we decided to go, once again, with a walk-in box and the newer Spartan cab and chassis, which worked for us in the older vehicle.”

He says the larger Spartan Gladiator cab gave the department more room and safety features not afforded in the older Spartan unit. Since Saulsbury was no longer in business, Zarra says the department had to find a new builder for the body.

“We went for Rescue 1 as the builder of the box,” he says. “Rescue 1 is known in the industry for building strong rescue bodies and is also know for its superb tool mounting, which is performed right at the factory.”

As the Rescue 1 manufacturing plant is only two hours from Hauppauge, it was easy for the committee to travel for inspections when necessary, he says, noting that COVID-19 prevented a lot of in-person meetings, forcing a number of Zoom calls a

LOUGHMAN (FL) — Polk County Fire Rescue held a grand opening Thursday morning for its fourth new station this year, WTSP.com reported. 

A fire official noted how the area had grown so much and how different it was from when he started. 

According to the Polk County Commission, $26 million has been committed to the next fiscal year’s budget to continue opening new stations.

Some residents in Lafayette want the city to find a different location for a new fire station saying they were promised 25 years ago to have the site remain as a green space, KLFY.com reported. 

The city-parish government has made a proposal to build the new station at Eastland Drive and Camelia Boulevard to replace the station at Montrose and Johnston Street, the report said.

A fire official said Fire Station 6 is not big enough (it can only hold one truck), and the property is not large enough to build what is needed, the report said.

One resident said the government promised that the area would remain a green space. There’s a resolution 065-97 that maintains that the green space would protect the integrity of the neighborhood, the report said.

A city official said the city hasn’t found any documents that says that the area can’t be used for a fire station and that’s why the city is in the process of putting a station there, according to the report.

By Andy Soccodato

Large-scale firefighting operations require supply pump operators to maximize the flow capabilities from the sources being used. When it’s a fire hydrant, this involves employing a heavy hydrant hookup.

Part 1 of this series examined the variables that affect a fire hydrant’s rated flow capacity—the residual main pressure and the number of outlets used on the hydrant. Part 2 examines the effects that pump operators can expect from double and triple tapped fire hydrants as well as the three major advantages of heavy hydrant operations (photo 1).

• Heavy Hydrant Hookups: Maximizing Hydrant Flows, Part 1
• High-Performance Hydrant Operations
• Maximizing Hydrant Flows Using 6-Inch Soft Suction
• Fire Hydrant Lubricant
• Ratcheting Fire Hydrant and Fittings Wrench
• Hydrant Booster System Brings Hydrants to Rural Areas
• Redundancy in Water Delivery

Supply Line Diameter

The hydrant outlet area is only one part of the puzzle when attempting to maximize hydrant flows. Another variable that must be evaluated when looking to achieve a hydrant’s full flow potential is the hoseline diameter attached to the hydrant outlets. It usually goes without saying that when connecting to the steamer port of the hydrant, the supply line of choice is large-diameter hose (LDH) (photo 2). However, when it comes to the 2½-inch side ports, many firefighters believe that 2½-inch or 3-inch hose is all that is required. These same firefighters are often surprised when the available flow rate from the hydrant barely increases after connecting with medium-diameter hose.

When attempting to maximize hydrant flow rates, we must remember that fluids follow the path of least resistance. When double tapping a fire hydrant and attaching a 5-inch LDH line to the steamer port and a 2½-inch line to the side port, the majority of the total water flow from the hydrant will be through the 5-inch line. This is simply because there is less friction, or resistance, through the 5-inch line compared to the 2½-inch line; the water wants to follow the path of least resistance. In this scenari