By Alan M. Petrillo
The Pattonville (MO) Fire Department has a continuous problem in its fire district with a huge landfill that has burned underground for years, and it could potentially threaten an underground nuclear waste disposal site. But the department has other needs, too, such as fire suppression, rescue, and EMS (emergency medical services) responses within its district, so it designed a pumper and an aerial platform that could handle all of those disciplines.
Steve Rogger, Pattonville battalion chief, says the radioactive waste in the landfill’s underground storage area is a remnant of the country’s World War II atomic bomb Manhattan Project. “We’ve been monitoring and dealing with the underground fire for years,” Rogger says, “and wanted to get apparatus where we could set up shop and handle that scenario if it came up in the future.” Rogger says Pattonville went to Rosenbauer for a vehicle similar to its then-current rescue-pumper, “but with a massive pump, and a lot of additional discharges.”
Pattonville is a career department with 65 firefighters and seven civilian employees working out of three fire stations and one administrative/training facility. The department responded to approximately 5,400 calls in 2021, 4,801 calls in 2020, and 5,342 calls in 2019, Rogger points out.
Besides being the home to two landfills—the largest landfill in the state as well as the radioactive storage landfill—Pattonville’s district also has the busiest interchange in the state at I-270 and I-70 where 188,000 vehicles travel daily, Rogger says. The district also includes a hospital, casino, outdoor amphitheater, county park, high school, middle school, three elementary schools, a small private airport, three soccer venues, several high-rise offices and hotels, five senior living communities, and a neighboring international airport.
Brian Franz, vice president of apparatus for Sentinel Emergency Solutions, who sold the two vehicles to Pattonville, says the pumper functions as a rescue/super pumper for the department. “It has a Hale 8FGR 3,000-gallons per minute (gpm) pump, a 750-gallon polypropylene water tank, a 30-gallon Class A foam tank, and a Hale SmartFoam 2.1 foam proportioning system,” Franz points out. “The rig has IDEX Fire and Safety’s SAM™ control system on it, with two control panels, one on each side of the pumper, along with a wireless tablet in the cab.”
Pattonville’s rescue-pumper has a Hale 8FGR 3,000-gallon per minute pump, an IDEX Fire and Safety SAM™ water control system, a 750-gallon water tank, a 30-gallon Class A foam tank, and a Hale SmartFoam 2.1 foam proportioning system.The pumper is built on a Rosenbauer Commander chassis and cab with seating for five fighters in a clean concept cab that has three forward-facing crew se