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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: Jun 1, 2018

Keep Hose Testing Safe by Not Using Fire Apparatus

By Gregg Geske

Members of the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association (FAMA) are experts at building big trucks with big horsepower and big water flow.

These capabilities are exactly what the fire service needs for putting out big fires. It is not, however, what you either need or want for testing hose, nozzles, and couplings.

Annual Testing is Essential

While the importance of proper equipment testing and maintenance is indisputable, it still seems that there are departments where this is message is often ignored. Several years ago, I visited a large fire department and was surprised that it did not perform annual hose or pump testing. When it comes to putting water on a fire, you need a pump and you need hose. Failure of either will mean you can’t get the job done. If you are not testing both at least annually, you risk failing at the main thing you need for fire suppression.

Another important reason to test hose annually is because it is required by the Insurance Services Office (ISO) system. Proper hose testing records are one of the check boxes on an ISO audit. Loss of an ISO rating not only means you are less effective as a department, it can also mean money out of your tax payers’ pockets in the form of higher insurance premiums.

Safe Testing Procedures are Essential

The proper method of testing hose is found in National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1962, Standard for the Care, Use, Inspection, Service Testing, and Replacement of Fire Hose, Couplings, Nozzles, and Fire Hose Appliances. There are two procedures that NFPA 1962 specifies: testing using a hose testing machine and using a stationary pump or pump on a fire department apparatus. While both these methods are described in the body of the standard, the second method comes with two important caveats. First and foremost is the warning that points out because of the risk of “catastrophic failure during the service testing of fire hose, it is vital that safety precautions be taken to prevent exposure of anyone to this danger.” The safety risk of hose testing using a fire apparatus stems from the very high horsepower that the apparatus can produce.

The second caveat is found in the annex to the standard. It points out the potential for damaging the pump by running the pump at high pressures and no flow. This situation can cause cavitation and high pump temperatures. The high heat created can also pose an additional safety risk.

Real-Life Safety Risks

More than 25 years ago, I was involved in a hose testing operation at my paid-per-call fire department for which our fire apparatus supplied the test pressure. Because of the lack of available space, we had the hose laid out in the fire station bays and apron. During the pressure test, one of the hose lengths failed and propelled a galvanized garbage can against the wall and flattened it. Luckily, it was a garbage can and not a firefighter. This example is a graphic demonstration of how much power is available through the apparatus pump.

The important part of safety we ignored was limiting the flow to the hose being tested. NFPA 1962 addresses this when using the fire apparatus pump by requiring that a gate valve with a Â¼-inch hole drilled through the gate be used between

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Posted: Jun 1, 2018

Inlets and Discharges: the Right Number and Location for Your Rig

By Alan M. Petrillo

From six-inch down to 2Â½-inch intakes and six-inch to 1Â½-inch discharges, today’s fire apparatus carry an assortment of inlets and outlets—in many different locations—according to the tactical needs of the fire department. Apparatus manufacturers typically talk with departments about the standard inlets and discharges needed for a specific pump size and then add any intake and discharge configuration needed for the department’s specific situation.

Front Bumper Location

Grady North, E-ONE product manager, says, “For E-ONE, there’s hardly a standard inlet and discharge layout anymore because we design the pump modules for every truck we build.” However, North says the biggest trend in pumper discharges is full-width front bumper crosslays. “A few years ago, it was common to see a single 1Â½-inch preconnect in a front bumper hose well, but now a lot of departments are doing two full crosslays, which gets the hose down low and easy to access for the firefighter.”

1Â E-ONE built this industrial pumper for the Citgo (IL) Fire Department with a Hale 8FG 3,500-gpm pump, four six-inch intakes, two 2Â½-inch intakes, and 14 discharges. (Photos 1 and 2 courtesy of E-ONE.)

2Â This E-ONE pumper built for the Rincon Valley (AZ) Fire Department has two 2Â½-inch preconnect discharges in boxes in the bottom of the L1 and R1 compartments.

1 E-ONE built this industrial pumper for the Citgo (IL) Fire Department with a Hale 8FG 3,500-gpm pump, four six-inch intakes, two 2Â½-inch intakes, and 14 discharges. (Photos 1 and 2 courtesy of E-ONE.) 2 This E-ONE pumper built for the Rincon Valley (AZ) Fire Department has two 2Â½-inch preconnect discharges in boxes in the bottom of the L1 and R1 compartments.

North cites a pumper that E-ONE recently built for the Bloomington (IL) Fire Department that has two 1Â¾-inch crosslays in the front bumper, two 2Â½-inch rear preconnects on the left and right ends, one right rear 2Â½-inch discharge, two 2Â½-inch left side panel discharges, a four-inch right side discharge, a three-inch deck gun discharge, two six-inch intakes, and two gated 2Â½-inch intakes.

Mark Kopunek, product manager, KME, says the manufacturer has built a number of pumpers for customers wanting double preconnect trays in the front bumper. “We’ve done full crosslays for 1Â¾-inch hoselines,” he says, “which give better accessibility at ground level. We’ve also built multiple storage wells with multiple discharges and also a single discharge and a six-inch intake with five-inch plumbing back to the pump.”

Larry Segreto, vice president of Boise Mobile Equipment (BME), says his company builds a lot of wildland pumpers. “For our pumpers, gate control always is located at the outlet,” Segreto points out. “And, we don’t put intakes on front bumpers but rather 1Â½-inch outlets with local control, usually one left and one right.” BME typically will install two rear discharges on its wildland ri

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Posted: Jun 1, 2018

Fire Apparatus Technology at the Tipping Point?

Chris Mc Loone

I was walking with two of my sons to their bus stop recently, and we were discussing how I’d be purchasing tickets for an upcoming Philadelphia Phillies game. The game was in just a few days, but as any Phillies fan these days knows, ticket availability was not going to be an issue.

I told them I’d be buying the tickets online when I got back to our house. For whatever reason as I said that, I thought about going to the ballpark as a kid. I told the boys about how we’d all end up at the ticket window, bags of chips and popcorn and a thermos of iced tea in hand because we NEVER bought food at the stadium. We’d stand there as my dad would get coupons from “Phillies Franks” out and tell the cashier where he wanted to sit, and in we’d go. I remarked how many would never think of doing it that way in this day and age. I said we didn’t even have a computer to do it with back in the day. My son said, “Now we use computers for everything.” This led to more reminiscing by me—much to their chagrin, I am sure—about how my dad told us his was one of the first families on his block to have a television, that when he was a kid they didn’t have televisions. And, it occurred to me I’m old enough to remember a time when not everyone had a computer. Commence feeling old.

So, there is a connection between this anecdote and the fire service—believe me. Our cover story this month is a wrap-up of what we saw at FDIC International 2018. And, for me, the pervasive theme was how technology is impacting the rigs and equipment we use every day as we travel to and operate at various incidents. In the wrap-up, you’ll get a taste of what our team was most impressed with at the show. It was different for everybody. But within that story and intertwined in the news and products sections this month, you’ll get a glimpse of the technology I’m talking about.

We’ve been talking about technology for many years when it comes to fire trucks and other equipment. The self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) we use is more sophisticated now than ever in how it can communicate to incident commanders our location and air consumption. We continue to hear about wearable technology that helps communicate physiological information from the wearer. And, of course, our fire trucks are more technologically advanced than they have ever been. But, this isn’t the type of technology I’m referring to. I’m talking about the higher-level technology introduced at the show and shortly thereafter. It is connecting vehicles and their components together in ways we haven’t seen and is taking telemetry to the next level. It is connecting emergency response vehicles to civilian cars and trucks to warn them of our approach via apps. It is allowing the rigs to communicate to fleet managers, dealerships, and the manufacturers themselves to keep trucks in service longer and is enabling predictive maintenance.

If it sounds like this is all happening quickly, it is. And, if we’re not at the tipping point for these systems to become pervasive, we are just about there. Now that the foundation is there for our vehicles to become “smart” vehicles communicating with the cloud, all that rem

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Posted: Jun 1, 2018

FDIC International 2018 Launchpad for Several Technologies

By Chris Mc Loone

Every year as FDIC International approaches, we start receiving new product press releases and news releases about what is about to be introduced at the show.

Some companies choose to remain tight-lipped, while others tease the fire industry with what is about to enter the market. As the teasers and press releases begin rolling in, we’re able to get an idea of various themes the show will have. In recent years, multipurpose apparatus emerged as a major theme. In other years, water movement has been a major theme as companies began offering rigs for industrial firefighting. At FDIC International 2018, the prevailing theme was technology, but not what you usually think about.

We’re not talking about technology built into trucks like multiplexing systems or touch screens or electric valves. There was still plenty of that, but we’re talking about technology at a much higher level.

The technology this year is about bringing the Internet of Things to fire apparatus and helping to create smart vehicles. It takes telemetry a step further and enables predictive maintenance based on what information a vehicle is communicating to the platform a department chooses. Think about updates to vehicle components happening over the air based on information sent to and received from the cloud. Or, think about vehicle readiness reports generated based on information pushed from vehicles or notifying the apparatus manufacturer and its dealer when a rig has to be taken out of service with information on the problem automatically. These are only a few examples, and as the systems become more and more sophisticated, the possibilities are endless.

Cancer prevention continued to be a prevailing theme this year. Apparatus manufacturers have now joined in the quest to help firefighters reduce their exposure to harmful contaminants found at structure fires. At FDIC International 2017, we saw many products introduced for personal protective equipment (PPE). This year, fire apparatus makers introduced their concepts to incorporate the “clean cab concept” into their truck designs. The innovations can be seen on cab interiors as well as exteriors.

3M Scott Fire & Safety also announced two donations to organizations working to educate firefighters on cancer awareness.

From an exhibit hall standpoint, many displays were massive this year. In some cases, these larger booths resulted from mergers and acquisitions, while others were the result of the time being right for different companies to expand their presence at the show. For example, MSA and Globe joined forces on the show floor for the first time, as did 3M and Scott Safety as they revealed their new branding, 3M Scott Fire & Safety.

I would be remiss if I did not mention two losses suffered by the fire industry right before and during FDIC International 2018.

On April 17, 2018, industry leader Bill Darley passed away at his home. Darley grew the W.S. Darley & Co. family business into an international business in firefighting equipment and manufacturing, led by the third- and fourth-generation family today. He traveled to 135 countries; was a fire industry leader; and served on boards such as Liberty Mutual, Dominican University, and the Catholic Charities’ Brighter Futures and LOSS programs.

On April 26, 2018, Ernest Kussmaul, founder of Kussmaul Electronics, passed away at the age of 88. He founded Kussmaul Electronics (KECO) in a small shop in 1967. The business grew as it expanded its extensive product line known for solutions for the emergency vehicle marke