Johnson Siding (SD) Volunteer Fire Department had W.S. Darley & Company build a MaxWASP (Wildland Attack Structure Protection) engine on a Ford F-550 4x4 four-door chassis. (Photos 1 and 2 courtesy of Johnson Siding Volunteer Fire Department.)

By Alan M. Petrillo

The Johnson Siding (SD) Volunteer Fire Department covers 64 square miles of rural residential area, forest, and wildland urban interface (WUI) in the center of South Dakota's Black Hills National Forest, with a population of 3,000 that doubles most summers with tourists. The department has 20 volunteer firefighters who operate out of two stations and wanted to replace a Type 1 pumper with a smaller, more nimble WUI pumper.

The Darley MaxWASP engine for Johnson Siding has a copolymer body with integral 300-gallon water and 25-gallon foam tanks, a Darley PSMC 1,500-gpm pump, Darley AutoCAFS system, a 120-cfm rotary screw CAFS air compressor, and a FoamPro 2001 foam system.

Steve Smart, Johnson Siding's chief, says the department was seeking to purchase "something easier to maneuver that one person could handle in starting to get water onto a fire before other apparatus began arriving." He adds that "our department is sometimes hurting for personnel during the daytime, and we have some volunteers who are intimidated driving a full-size pumper."

In building the MaxWASP, Darley lifted the vehicle a couple of inches to get clearance for Super Single wheels and tires, put on fender flare kits, and added a custom full-width powder coated aluminum front bumper with a 8,000-pound Warn winch. (Photos 3 through 6 courtesy of W.S. Darley and Company.)

After investigating small pumpers made by different manufacturers, Johnson Siding chose W.S. Darley and Company for its wildland attack structure protection (WASP) engine. Troy Carothers, AutoCAFS manager at Darley, says Johnson Siding asked for a number of modifications to the WASP design and ended up tagging the finished product the MaxWASP. "We lifted the vehicle a couple of inches to get the necessary wheel clearance for Super Single wheels and tires," Carothers points out. "We had to carve out the front fenders and put on fender flare kits because of the wider front and rear tire stance, added a custom full-width powder-coated aluminum front bumper, and removed the rear dual wheels and replaced them with Hutchinson 20-inch wheels with Beadlocks and Continental MPT 81 335/80 R20 tires rated for 70 miles an hour."

MaxWASP compartments are protected by rollup doors, with the exception of the air bottle storage compartment in front of the rear wheel.

Carothers notes that vehicle has a copolymer body with integral 300-gallon water and 25-gallon foam tanks, a Darley PSMC 1,500-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump, a Darley Read more

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