The Island Heights Volunteer Fire Co. 1 recently announced that construction on its new firehouse has commenced.

“The IHVFC is excited to announce that we are finally underway in building our new firehouse! After 60 years, our current firehouse, built entirely by our own members, has reached the end of its useful life. We are constructing a new building to meet the current and future needs of the company, such as our growing fleet of larger modern fire apparatus, as well as the needs of the town.

“Over the coming weeks and months, we will be spotlighting the history of our current firehouse and progress of the new construction. As an independent volunteer organization, this is a major undertaking that could not be possible without continued support from our community, mayor and council. We look forward to continuing our over 125 years of dedicated volunteer service to Island Heights and our neighbors.”

Source: TFT, Sponsored Content

Every firefighter knows the smell inside a fire truck or at the station after a working fire. It’s harsh, it’s easily identifiable and, it turns out, it’s deadly for firefighters and first responders.

The burning of any combustible material releases a harmful concoction of smoke and soot filled with cancer causing chemicals that permeates turnout gear, apparatus cabs and the air you breathe. Eventually, that bad stuff makes it back to the station as well, creating toxic living environments, dramatically increasing the likelihood of firefighter illness or death.

Additionally, in recent years, we’ve all become familiar with the need to protect ourselves and our crews from viruses that pose significant health risks to all first responders.

The threats are real. According to statistics published by the Center for Disease Control and The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), between 2002-2019, two-thirds of the line-of-duty-deaths among firefighters were due to cancer. In 2020, one-third of first responder deaths were due to Covid-19. By any measure, those numbers are staggering and unacceptable.

The time has long passed to be proactive in protecting firefighters and first responders and Task Force Tips (TFT) can help you mitigate the health risks efficiently and effectively. In addition to their consultative approach – learning about your unique circumstance and goals – their products named CrewProtect and StationProtect use advanced technologies to filter the air your crews breathe within apparatus and at your station.

Jeff Hicks, OEM/Health Channel Manager for TFT, explains CrewProtect, which is an in-the-cab air filtration system for apparatus and StationProtect, a larger unit for use in emergency services buildings, drastically reduces airborne threats to firefighters and first responders.

“We decided to go after the three major threats that are in the fire service today and that would be particulates, off-gassing of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and viruses, including the CoV-2 which is the cause of COVID-19,” Hicks says, noting the system also provides mitigation of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Task Force Tips is known the world over as a business that develops innovative water flow management and fire suppression equipment, including nozzles, monitors, ball intake valves and more. At the core of the company, since day one, has been making the world safer, healthier and more productive while helping first responders save lives and protect property. It’s a mission the founders of the company fully embraced decades ago. TFT’s parent company, Madison Industries, has expanded the mission.

One of the companies within the Madison Industries family is Purafil, the world leader in the engineering and manufacturing of air filtration media and equipment.

“We decided to utilize the expertise of our sister company to develop a solution to mitigate those three major threats to firefighters,” Hicks says, noting that Purafil’s technology is used in hospitals around the world to create clean rooms, is used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as well as the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, to protect priceless works of art.

“Our cab decontamination solution uses PuraShield technology from Purafil, which is a patented and proven technology that’s been around for a long time”, Hicks says, noting our system has a four-part filtration system that captures particulates down to n

On Thursday, the Minister of National Security, Renee Ming, visited the Hamilton Fire Station to observe officers undergoing training for the Bermuda Fire & Rescue Service’s (BF&RS) new Aerial Ladder Platform.

The newest addition to the BF&RS’s fleet arrived on the island last week.

Minister Ming said, “I’m extremely grateful to the team at the BF&RS for taking a brief pause from their training this morning to demonstrate the functions and capabilities of this state-of-the-art Fire Fighting Appliance.

“The arrival of the Aerial Ladder Platform is a critical addition to the BF&RS’s life-saving equipment and will greatly assist our Officers in responding to major fire incidents that may occur on the Island.”

Assistant Chief Fire Officer Dana Lovell, who was on hand to provide an overview of the capabilities of the new aerial ladder, said, “Currently, our fire officers are undergoing the vital training needed to ensure that they’re experienced and knowledgeable in the use of this very impressive piece of equipment.

“Our mechanics and maintenance team have also been given extensive instruction on how to maintain the Arial Ladder Platform so that it can remain in service for many years to come.”

Once all training and qualifications are in place, the BF&RS will bring the vehicle into full service in the coming weeks.

Following Friday’s push-in ceremony at Station 5, Central County Fire & Rescue’s American Veteran Fire Truck is officially in service.

Earlier: Central County (MO) Fire & Rescue Dedicates New Fire Truck in Honor of American Veterans

“We were honored to have our local Veterans help us push the truck into the station,” the department writes on Facebook. “Two WWll Veterans were in attendance and led in the pushing of the truck. We are honored to pay tribute to our nation’s veterans with this beautiful Pierce Mfg pumper. Thank you to everyone over the past year that had a hand in making this dream possible. 9554 is now officially providing service to the citizens within the CCFR Fire District and surrounding mutual aid areas.”

Local veterans and active military personnel are invited to participate in a traditional “push-back” ceremony on Friday, March 4 to place the new American Veteran Fire Truck in service.

With construction underway for three new fire trucks purchased by Central County Fire & Rescue (CCFR) over a year ago, a last minute idea to paint one of the fire trucks with an American flag design resulted in a unique fire truck that is something never before created. CCFR will place the “American Veteran Fire Truck” in service with a “push-back” ceremony on Friday, March 4.

Saint Peters is the former home of Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, who was killed in action on August 26, 2021 as the result of an enemy attack while supporting non-combatant evacuation operations in Kabul, Afghanistan during Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. It was during the services to honor Lance Corporal Schmitz’ life and his ultimate sacrifice that the idea to dedicate a truck in his honor was first born. Initially referred to as “the flag truck,” the original idea of painting the truck with an American flag design grew to incorporate multiple elements of military service and sacrifice, including the POW-MIA theme and the emblems for every military branch.

“Our entire community was in shock and mourning the death of a local hero, and we knew we wanted to do something to honor him,” says Jason Meinershagen, CCFR Deputy Chief and Public Information Officer. “Our fire district is very supportive of our veterans, so we quickly knew it was not enough to dedicate a fire truck to just one man, as tragic as his death was. We wanted to do something that touched the heart of every patriot in our community,” says Meinershagen.

The push-back ceremony is a tradition dating back to the early days of firefighting when horses could not easily back the equipment into the station, so they were disconnected from the fire equipment and firefighters would push the equipment back into the bay. In today’s fire service, it is used to pay homage to that tradition when placing a new apparatus in service for the first time by pushing the truck back into the station.

Last December, on the 80th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941, CCFR firefighters presented a letter of appreciation to over 280 employees at the manufacturing plant who had a part in the desig

Rosenbauer’s first RTX fully electric fire truck for the North America market will soon be delivered to the Los Angeles City Fire Department.

The RTX embodies technological know-how which was honed over ten years of development work by the Rosenbauer Group. The result is more than an “electrified fire engine.” It is the blueprint for the firefighting vehicle of the future: a vehicle that is functional and robust, with a highly ergonomic vehicle architecture, an unprecedented level of safety for the crew, and an innovative operating concept with comprehensive connectivity. The RTX combines everything that firefighters demand out of a vehicle into one productive apparatus.

Unrivalled Driving Maneuverability

What distinguishes the RTX is its stable handling and high driving safety. It has a low-floor height with a core tube frame in which one of the two high-voltage batteries is installed. This results in a much lower center of gravity compared to traditional firefighting vehicles. Single-wheel suspension and switchable rear axle steering ensure excellent maneuverability, and the RTX can even operate in crab steering mode. The air-suspended chassis allows the adjustability of the driving height to the ground (on-road and off-road driving, wading mode, operation site mode), and due to the compact dimensions (L x W = approx. 28.5’ x 92.5”), the vehicle can easily drive through narrow alleys and heavy traffic. Modern assistance systems such as ADM (Automatic Drivetrain Management) and EBS (Electronic Braking System) support the driver.

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Electric Drive System

The advanced driving dynamics of the RTX are a result of the electric drivetrain design: two electric motors with an output of 2 x 180 kW (peak) or 2 x 130 kW (continuous) drive all four wheels (permanent all-wheel drive). They are supplied with power from two high-voltage batteries with an electrical storage capacity of 132 kWh, which also