UTV and ATV Units Being Equipped for Fire, Rescue, and EMS Duties

BY ALAN M. PETRILLO

Fire departments are turning to utility terrain vehicles (UTVs) and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) for a number of different applications, including emergency response in rough terrain, as wildland firefighting units, as ancillary pumpers to engine companies, and as quick-response rescue and emergency medical service (EMS) units.

VEHICLES

Jed Leonard, vice president of government and defense sales for Polaris®, says that his company’s vehicles have been used by various fire agencies “to improve response times and get to hard-to-reach areas without compromising mission effectiveness. These light off-road vehicles let firefighters get to places their other vehicles can’t reach effectively, whether it be mountainous or hilly terrain, forested and rural areas, or tight urban environments.”

The Polaris Ranger® has been used widely for both fire and rescue applications, Leonard says, and by employing a skid approach to the bed of the unit, it can be used for multiple missions by changing the configuration from fire to rescue or to event participation. “We also have an integration capability with our vehicles where we partner with RKO for fire skids and Action Fleet and Federal Signal for various other parts of the skid kits,” he points out.

While Polaris is now delivering a newer Ranger platform, the Ranger 1000 XP, it also offers the General® chassis, which has a smaller rear bed than the Ranger, meaning it has less payload capacity but with a different suspension and seating configuration that suits it well for general patrol or beach patrol type missions, Leonard notes. Polaris also added all-electric GEM™ e2 and e4 vehicles to its public safety line.

Ben White, sponsorship manager for Textron, notes that Textron makes a wide variety of side-by-side UTVs and ATVs. “What we see most commonly chosen by fire departments is the Stampede 4 because it can carry four passengers and 600 pounds of equipment in its dump bed,” White says. “The Stampede 4 is powered by an 80-horsepower (hp) electronic fuel injection (EFI) gasoline engine and has a two-inch receiver at the rear that allows it to handle an additional 2,000 pounds