Alan M. Petrillo

The Flower Mound (TX) Fire Department has 100 paid firefighters and 15 administrative staff working out of six stations to protect a population of 70,000 in 50 square miles that includes heavy residential, big box warehouses, retail, and half of the shoreline and waters of Lake Grapevine. The Flower Mound Fire District is five miles north of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Eric Greaser, Flower Mound’s chief, says the fire district has rural areas situated in between more densely developed areas to the east and west of town, where there are some extremely tight spots to maneuver apparatus. “We have tight turning radii on some of the streets that we service, and on the north end of the lake the houses were built in the 1940s and 1950s where it is extremely tight to get into as well as having to go over some small bridges and over rough roads,” Greaser says. “It’s a challenging area that isn’t standard with other areas of town. It’s a conservation district where there is a limited density of houses on two acres of land or greater.”

1 The Flower Mound (TX) Fire Department had Pierce Manufacturing build this Type 3 WUI pumper and added a number of Type 1 engine characteristics to it. (Photos by Lindsay Dye.)

Getting Around the WUI

Faced with limited access, tight turning radii, and the need for four-wheel drive, Flower Mound had Pierce Manufacturing build a Type 3 wildland urban interface (WUI) pumper that has many features of a Type 1 engine. “We started out with a typical Type 3 WUI spec of a four-door, four-wheel-drive vehicle with a minimum of a 1,000-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump and 500 gallons of water,” Greaser points out, “and merged it with Type 1 engines specs, where the vehicle would carry some structural firefighting equipment but still serve on the wildland side too.”

Kirk Lambert, a Flower Mound captain, says, “We use the Type 3 WUI rig as first out of our station for structure fires to do an initial knockdown, but it’s also very wildland-capable, with its bumper sweeps, the Darley 1.5AGH mobile attack pump for pump and roll, 150 feet of 1¾-inch hose and 200 feet of one-inch forestry line in the front bumper, and a hose reel with 100 feet of one-inch red (booster) line.”

2 The Type 3 pumper for Flower Mound has a Darley LSP 1,000-gpm single-stage midship pump, a Darley 1.5AGH mobile attack pump for pump and roll, a 500-gallon water tank, and a FoamPro foam system.

Lambert notes that because the hosebed on the Type 3 is smaller than on the Type 1 engines, only carrying 400 feet of five-inch large-diameter hose (LDH) and 500 feet of 2½-inch, the department uses different tactics when appro

Alan M. Petrillo

The Flower Mound (TX) Fire Department has 100 paid firefighters and 15 administrative staff working out of six stations to protect a population of 70,000 in 50 square miles that includes heavy residential, big box warehouses, retail, and half of the shoreline and waters of Lake Grapevine. The Flower Mound Fire District is five miles north of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Eric Greaser, Flower Mound’s chief, says the fire district has rural areas situated in between more densely developed areas to the east and west of town, where there are some extremely tight spots to maneuver apparatus. “We have tight turning radii on some of the streets that we service, and on the north end of the lake the houses were built in the 1940s and 1950s where it is extremely tight to get into as well as having to go over some small bridges and over rough roads,” Greaser says. “It’s a challenging area that isn’t standard with other areas of town. It’s a conservation district where there is a limited density of houses on two acres of land or greater.”

1 The Flower Mound (TX) Fire Department had Pierce Manufacturing build this Type 3 WUI pumper and added a number of Type 1 engine characteristics to it. (Photos by Lindsay Dye.)

Getting Around the WUI

Faced with limited access, tight turning radii, and the need for four-wheel drive, Flower Mound had Pierce Manufacturing build a Type 3 wildland urban interface (WUI) pumper that has many features of a Type 1 engine. “We started out with a typical Type 3 WUI spec of a four-door, four-wheel-drive vehicle with a minimum of a 1,000-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump and 500 gallons of water,” Greaser points out, “and merged it with Type 1 engines specs, where the vehicle would carry some structural firefighting equipment but still serve on the wildland side too.”

Kirk Lambert, a Flower Mound captain, says, “We use the Type 3 WUI rig as first out of our station for structure fires to do an initial knockdown, but it’s also very wildland-capable, with its bumper sweeps, the Darley 1.5AGH mobile attack pump for pump and roll, 150 feet of 1¾-inch hose and 200 feet of one-inch forestry line in the front bumper, and a hose reel with 100 feet of one-inch red (booster) line.”

2 The Type 3 pumper for Flower Mound has a Darley LSP 1,000-gpm single-stage midship pump, a Darley 1.5AGH mobile attack pump for pump and roll, a 500-gallon water tank, and a FoamPro foam system.

Lambert notes that because the hosebed on the Type 3 is smaller than on the Type 1 engines, only carrying 400 feet of five-inch large-diameter hose (LDH) and 500 feet of 2½-inch, the department uses different tactics when appro

Alan M. Petrillo

The Flower Mound (TX) Fire Department has 100 paid firefighters and 15 administrative staff working out of six stations to protect a population of 70,000 in 50 square miles that includes heavy residential, big box warehouses, retail, and half of the shoreline and waters of Lake Grapevine. The Flower Mound Fire District is five miles north of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Eric Greaser, Flower Mound’s chief, says the fire district has rural areas situated in between more densely developed areas to the east and west of town, where there are some extremely tight spots to maneuver apparatus. “We have tight turning radii on some of the streets that we service, and on the north end of the lake the houses were built in the 1940s and 1950s where it is extremely tight to get into as well as having to go over some small bridges and over rough roads,” Greaser says. “It’s a challenging area that isn’t standard with other areas of town. It’s a conservation district where there is a limited density of houses on two acres of land or greater.”

1 The Flower Mound (TX) Fire Department had Pierce Manufacturing build this Type 3 WUI pumper and added a number of Type 1 engine characteristics to it. (Photos by Lindsay Dye.)

Getting Around the WUI

Faced with limited access, tight turning radii, and the need for four-wheel drive, Flower Mound had Pierce Manufacturing build a Type 3 wildland urban interface (WUI) pumper that has many features of a Type 1 engine. “We started out with a typical Type 3 WUI spec of a four-door, four-wheel-drive vehicle with a minimum of a 1,000-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump and 500 gallons of water,” Greaser points out, “and merged it with Type 1 engines specs, where the vehicle would carry some structural firefighting equipment but still serve on the wildland side too.”

Kirk Lambert, a Flower Mound captain, says, “We use the Type 3 WUI rig as first out of our station for structure fires to do an initial knockdown, but it’s also very wildland-capable, with its bumper sweeps, the Darley 1.5AGH mobile attack pump for pump and roll, 150 feet of 1¾-inch hose and 200 feet of one-inch forestry line in the front bumper, and a hose reel with 100 feet of one-inch red (booster) line.”

2 The Type 3 pumper for Flower Mound has a Darley LSP 1,000-gpm single-stage midship pump, a Darley 1.5AGH mobile attack pump for pump and roll, a 500-gallon water tank, and a FoamPro foam system.

Lambert notes that because the hosebed on the Type 3 is smaller than on the Type 1 engines, only carrying 400 feet of five-inch large-diameter hose (LDH) and 500 feet of 2½-inch, the department uses different tactics when appro

By Alan M. Petrillo

The Houston (TX) Fire Department was looking to add a new station and concentrated on energy efficiency as a hallmark for the new structure.

The fire department turned to Brown Reynolds Watford (BRW) Architects to design the station that would take up about two acres on an eight-acre city site that will serve as a public safety location to ultimately include a new police station.

Energy Efficiency

“We wanted to think outside the box in terms of air-conditioning and heating,” says Mark Donovan, Houston’s assistant fire chief. “We went with geothermal cooling and heating, the first of our 93 stations to use geothermal. We also wanted to get the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating that we could, and geothermal provided a very big bump on that score. Plus, we thought we also might see significant cost savings on energy.”

1 Houston (TX) Fire Department Ladder 26 exits Station 84. The department and the architects, Brown Reynolds Watford Architects, won a LEED award for the station. (Photos courtesy of Michael Lyon and Brown Reynolds Watford Architects.)

Nearly a year after the department moved into the station in April 2016, Donovan compared the new Station 84 electrical usage to that of Houston’s 1980s-era Station 75. “The electricity use for Station 84 is about $1,200 a month, which is around $300 a month less than Station 75, even though Station 84 is more than 50 percent larger at 15,500 square feet compared to Station 75’s 10,200 square feet,” he says. BRW and the department won a Silver LEED award for Station 84.

Station 84 also makes use of a great deal of natural ambient light, Donovan points out, as well as sustainable products, such as cabinetry made out of bamboo. “We also have all LED lighting and an access-controlled location where we can pull off the roadway and activate the Opticom to get in the gate and close it after entering,” he says. “We also have on-site fueling for our apparatus and a backup generator that will power 100 percent capacity of the station when needed.”

2 The kitchen in Houston’s Station 84 uses cabinetry constructed of bamboo and is surrounded by clerestory windows to provide natural, ambient light.

Gary DeVries, principal at BRW Architects, says that once BRW got the award to design the station, his staff visited other Houston stations, asking firefighters what they liked and disliked about their quarters. “We also consulted with the fire chief for his vision of what he wanted Station 84 to look like, which was modern architecture, and the head of the General Services Department, who wanted a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art station,” DeVries says.

Building Features

For the geothermal mechanical system, DeVries says the construction manager, J.E. Dunn Contracting, drilled 30 wells that would d