Recently, Horry County Government received shipment of five new identical Pierce fire engines for Horry County Fire Rescue.

In the coming days and weeks, Fleet Services will be finalizing preparations for these new engines, so they can be sent out to their new homes across Horry County.

By Alan M. Petrillo

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Somerdale (NJ) Fire Department found it needed to replace a 14-year-old rescue-pumper with a rig that was a multi-use piece of apparatus because of the growing community that the department serves. It’s previous rescue-pumper was a Ferrara Fire Apparatus vehicle, so the department felt very comfortable going back to Ferrara to have it build its new multi-functional rescue-pumper.

Brian Barkoff, Somerdale’s chief, says Somerdale is a 1.5-square mile town that’s a suburb of Philadelphia with a population of 6,000. “We’re primarily a bedroom community with a commercial area that has a shopping mall, theaters and retail businesses, along with a small industrial park,” Barkoff says. “We have 40 volunteer firefighters responding out of one station with a Ferrara engine and quint, our new rescue-pumper, and an air/light truck. We’re on automatic mutual aid for every structure fire in a six-square mile area with a 21,500 population.”

Steve Shatzel, project manager for Firefighter One Apparatus, which sold the vehicle to Somerdale, says the rescue-pumper is built on a Cinder chassis and cab with seating for six firefighters, five of them in SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus) seats. He notes that the rig is powered by a 450-horsepower (hp) Cummins L9 diesel engine and an Allison 3000 EVS automatic transmission, and has a Hale Qmax 2,000-gallon per minute (gpm) pump, and a 500-gallon polypropylene water tank. Wheelbase on the rescue-pumper is 205 inches, overall length is 33 feet 11-3/4-inches, and overall height is 9 feet 5-1/4-inches.

Barkoff notes that the department wanted to increase the usability of its new rescue-pumper, so it added more preconnected hosed Holmatro hydraulic rescue tools to the rig. “In the R1 compartment, we have three slide-out trays, one with four Holmatro rams and a mini-cutter, a second one with two hydraulic cutters and one spreader, and on the third slide-out tray, a gasoline-drive hydraulic pump,” he says. “Two hydraulic hose reels are located in the coffin compartment above the R1 compartment and feed their hydraulic hoses down into the top of the compartment.̶

Horry County Fire Rescue held a ceremonial groundbreaking for a new fire station Thursday, WPDE.com reported. It’s located at 120 Burcale Road in the Forestbrook area of Myrtle Beach.

This is the third fire station the department has broken ground on in the last two weeks, the report said. The other two are at 2291 Highway 31 E. in Longs and 4886 Highway 905 in Conway.

Construction is taking place over the coming months on the new stations. They hope to have them up and running by 2024, according to the report.

The Lowndes County Fire Department will apply for a federal Assistance to Firefighters grant to purchase a $500,000 tanker and pumper fire truck to replace one of the department’s older tanker vehicles, cdispatch.com reported.

A county fire official presented the idea to the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors at its regular meeting Wednesday before going through with the application process, the report said. Once the grant application is started, the fire official will know what the county match would be in the event the grant is awarded.

The new truck will carry up to 3,000 gallons of water and pump up to 1,250 gallons per minute, the report said. The current truck is becoming more expensive to fix as new parts become scarce and the metal lining of the water tank has begun to thin out, according to the report.

This has caused leaks and ultimately rusted other areas of the truck, causing further damage, according to the report. But it may take up to two years before the department is awarded any money should it receive the grant, the fire official said.