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Welcome

The Finest Supporting the Bravest!

The purpose of the Fire Mechanics Section is to promote standardization of fire apparatus and equipment preventative maintenance, improve safety standards and practices, promote workshops, conferences, and seminars related to the purposes of this Section, and to promote cost savings through standardization of building and equipment purchasing and maintenance.

RECENT FIRE MECHANIC NEWS

Posted: Jul 1, 2019

New EMS Station for Boston (MA)

The Galante Architecture Studio’s Design of Boston EMS Station Wins International Design Award

BY ALAN M. PETRILLO

A Boston, Massachusetts, EMS station designed by The Galante Architecture Studio is the winner of an international 2019 German Design Award presented by the German Design Council.

The new EMS facility, which previously won an Architects Newspaper Award for its design, won in the Excellent Communications Design—Architecture category. A statement from the German Design Council’s jury notes, “The timelessly clear, straightforward architecture is designed entirely with function in mind. A good design that also impresses in terms of energy efficiency.”

DEPARTMENT-DRIVEN DESIGN

Ted Galante, principal at The Galante Architecture Studio, says he didn’t intend to win an award with the design but rather focused on the building’s function, and the design flowed from that. “This project was driven by Boston’s program, budget, and schedule,” Galante says. “When we put the program and function into the building, we knew it didn’t have to look complex but had to operate in a complex way that is durable and long lasting.”

The approximately 10,500-square-foot structure comprises 11 nondrive-through apparatus bays, each double deep to accommodate two ambulances and outfitted with vehicle exhaust systems. The facility is not staffed 24/7 so there are no dorm rooms. However, it does contain two offices, a break room with a small kitchen area, and an instruction area where the city gives out child safety car seats.

John Cushing, director of facilities for Boston EMS, says the station is used purely to house the department’s ambulances. “Those ambulances don’t respond out of the station because they are assigned to a specific geographic area, and each of them has certain posts,” Cushing points out. “So, it’s not like a neighborhood station where ambulances run out of it. Each shift reports to the station and takes its ambulance to its working area and returns to the station later to hand over to the next shift.”

NECESSARY EXPANSION

The new EMS facility replaced a dilapidated garage located on the historic grounds of the old Boston Sanatorium. “We had been housed in an old four-bay maintenance building at the site of the old state hospital, which had been developed into different uses,” Cushing says. “We needed to expand onto some available land, and the city of Boston’s Capital Improvement Program gave us the potential to do the expansion to an 11-bay station.” Cost of the facility was $3.4 million.

The Galante Architecture Studio designed an 11-bay double-deep EMS station for Boston (MA) EMS that can house 20 ambulances and a mass casualty bus.

1 The Galante Architecture Studio designed an 11-bay double-deep EMS station for Boston (MA) EMS that can house 20 ambulances and a mass casualty bus. (Photos courtesy of The Galante Architecture Studio.)

Boston EMS required a hardened station because
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Posted: Jul 1, 2019

Editor's Opinion: Do You Get Your Hands Dirty?

Do You Get Your Hands Dirty?

When it comes to training, there are few firefighters who will disagree that hands-on training is the best way for us to develop our skills.

During hands-on training evolutions we learn what our limits are, and we also have an opportunity for repetitive training that will prepare us for many of the incidents to which we respond. Live burning, extrication training on vehicles, search and rescue using modular training buildings, etc. provide realistic scenarios for drills.

Not only do these evolutions allow us to practice tactics through repetition, but we also get to know tools we use inside and out—and that means fire apparatus too.

Similar “hands-on” theories apply to the tools and apparatus we use. I was talking to a colleague recently, and we were discussing how the technology we use every day for various tasks has also changed how some departments make purchases.

Editorial Advisory Board member Bill Adams has often commented that when a fire apparatus salesperson enters a purchasing committee meeting for the first time, he is facing a group that more than likely already knows a great deal about his product and already has the answers to many of their questions because they have already done exhaustive research via the Internet. But, is that really enough to make up your mind as a purchaser? You are getting ready to spend, for an aerial for example, up to and often exceeding $1 million on the purchase. Do you want to go to your board of commissioners, your department brass, or the mayor and say that you want to spend X amount of dollars on a rig that you liked because you saw it on the Web? Many have heard the expression, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Not so when you’re talking about spec’ing a rig.

Blueprints and specification documents only go so far. Pictures showing a rig from different angles and showing compartment and cab interiors don’t cut it when trying to evaluate the fit and finish of a fire truck. The only way to do this is to get out and get your hands dirty.

The information we have at our fingertips is unmatched in history. But, there is nothing that can replace standing next to a fire apparatus and inspecting it to determine your committee’s preferences. The way to do this is to make sure you attend the trade shows. Depending on the show’s size, you’re going to do some walking. But unless you’re planning to invite five or more manufacturers to your department’s parking lot one night, you won’t have the opportunity to analyze rigs from various manufacturers in one place. And, let’s be honest—for obvious reasons, the aforementioned manufacturer muster in your parking lot is likely not going to happen.

Why trade shows? Many times you’re going to see the best of the best of what a manufacturer is offering. You get to see exactly what a manufacturer means in a description online or in promotional materials. You get behind the wheel; you put two of your tallest firefighters across from each other in the cab to truly test the legroom; you put firefighters next to each other to test how easy it will be to don a self-contained

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Posted: Jul 1, 2019

Fire Apparatus Rollovers, Part 6

Apparatus Rollovers, Part 5: Rollovers on Straight Roads

BY CHRIS DALY

By now, you may be sick of hearing about lateral g-force. Too bad—it’s important. Understanding these advanced concepts is what separates the professional fire apparatus operator from a simple steering wheel holder.

At this point, our regular readers should understand the evil nature of lateral g-force. Lateral g-force can cause a fire apparatus to roll over or lose control. This rollover or loss of control usually happens while rounding a curve or conducting an evasive maneuver. Remember that as speed increases, or the curve gets sharper (the radius decreases), the amount of lateral g-force acting on the apparatus will increase accordingly.

Keep in mind that “curve radius” defines more than just a curve in the road. A vehicle will traverse a “curve in the road” any time the driver turns the steering wheel and causes the vehicle to change direction. The radius of this “artificial” curve is directly related to how sharply the driver turns the steering wheel.

Many fire apparatus crashes are the result of the driver drifting off the road and then overcorrecting to regain control of the vehicle. When the driver overcorrects, he turns the wheel and creates an artificial curve in an otherwise straight road. If the driver turns the wheel too sharply, the vehicle may experience a g-force that is greater than the rollover threshold of the vehicle. As a result, the vehicle will roll over. These types of crashes usually occur at high speeds, which is why it is so important for a driver to understand the danger of excess speed and the proper use of smooth steering control.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Firefighter Fatality Report System is full of fire apparatus rollover crashes, many of which occurred on a straight road. By examining these crashes in more detail, it is easy to recognize a common scenario. The driver of the doomed apparatus drifts off the road because he is distracted, tries to move out of the way to avoid an oncoming vehicle, or finds some other reason to turn the steering wheel and drop the tires off the asphalt road surface. Once the outside wheels drop off the paved surface, the fire apparatus will often become “trapped.” The inside of the tire will scuff and drag along the pavement edge as the fire apparatus continues traveling forward. Because the tires are unable to remount the pavement edge, the driver turns the wheel more and more, increasing the steering angle, until suddenly the steering tires have turned far enough to ride over the pavement edge and remount the asphalt roadway.

Once the tire remounts the roadway, the steering axle is pointed across the road and the fire apparatus shoots into the oncoming lane. As the driver enters the oncoming lane, he turns the wheel hard in the opposite direction in an attempt to get back into his own lane. When the driver turns the wheel, he creates an artificial “curve” in an otherwise straight road. If the apparatus is traveling fast enough, and the steering wheel is turned hard enough, the driver will create enough lateral g-force to exceed the rollover threshold of the vehicle. As a result of this overcorrection, the vehicle will roll over.

So how do we prevent this type of overcorrection crash? First, don’t drive off the road! Keep two hands on the wheel, let the officer work the radio and the siren, and don’t become distracted. The most important thing the driver can do is keep the vehicle safely within its lane of travel. The other thing to remember is to slow down BEFORE entering a curve. If the driver enters the curve too fast, the vehicle may und