By Bill Adkins
With the budget restraints in today’s fire departments, we may be called to improvise to get the biggest bang for our buck. We know fire apparatus is already expensive, so buying multiple units to accommodate the needs of the public can be somewhat unrealistic.
Taking the budget problem out of the equation, most of our members drive small cars or light trucks. Now we are asking them to drive large fire apparatus that may be 10 times heavier than anything they have ever driven before. Not to mention we are asking them to drive in emergency situations.
Now I am not saying we need to do away with the big apparatus. This article is not referring to the structural fire responses, even though some of these apparatus are capable. This article is referring to the hundreds of other situations we as firefighters respond to. From wildland fires, vehicle fires, rescue responses, and mutual aid, just to name a few, these smaller, multi-purpose response vehicles may be more accommodating.
Ultra-High-Pressure (UHP) Vehicle
When referencing fast-acting fire apparatus, we’re talking about smaller, lighter, and more versatile vehicles. One way to keep a vehicle lighter is to use less water; UHP pumps use pressures above 1,100 psi to break up the water into smaller water droplets to absorb more heat. Because of the small droplets, when paired up with foam it creates a dense foam blanket on the surface of what may be burning.
UHP is not a new technology, but it’s not well-known in the southwestern part of Ohio. We recently tested out the UHP vehicle at a car fire training. Concord and Green Townships in Fayette County, Ohio, allowed us to use their UHP truck for this training. This fire apparatus holds 150 gallons of water with a 30-gallon foam tank. When conducting the training we successfully extinguished five car fires and still had a quarter of a tank of water. I have not had that same result when using a pumper with 1,000 gallons of water.
When talking to the crew from Concord/Green Townships, I found that they use this vehicle for auto accidents, rescue incidents, car fires, wildland fires, and any other time they do not need an apparatus with a significant amount of water. This helps them to respond on incidents when they do not have someone cleared to drive the larger apparatus as well. Because of its smaller tank it allows for much more compartment space. With additional compartment space comes more options for tools needed on a magnitude of different emergency scenes.
Because of the smaller water ta