Riceville (NC) Volunteer Fire Department needed a new pumper to replace a 1990 two-seat Emergency Equipment Inc. rig that had seen better days. But Chief Thad B. Lewis put limitations on the truck committee when it started preparing specs, namely a low overall height and a short overall length because of area topography and firehouse size issues; plus, the vehicle had to function as a tanker.
“Our bay doors are only 10 feet high, so we wanted a pumper with a maximum height of 9½ feet,” Lewis says, “and we have truck bays that are about 40 feet deep, so we wanted to see around a 27-foot overall length. The truck had to be maneuverable because of our very hilly district, and it had to serve as a tanker when needed.”
Lewis says the truck committee worked well within the restrictions laid out and developed a set of specifications that five manufacturers bid on. “The truck committee then determined the strengths and weaknesses of each of the bidders and noted what the bidders complied with and what they didn’t,” he says. “KME came the closest to matching everything we wanted, so it got the contract.”
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| 1 The Riceville (NC) Volunteer Fire Department chose KME to build this short overall length, low-height, short-wheelbase pumper. Note the tight front bumper. The vehicle also lacks a backstep, having two pull-out platforms instead. (Photos courtesy of KME.) |
The end result is a pumper-tanker on a KME Severe Service MFD cab with a 10-inch raised roof and seating for four firefighters, an overall height of 9 feet 5 inches, an overall length of 27 feet 7½ inches, and a wheelbase of 166 inches. The vehicle is powered by a Cummins 500-horsepower (hp) ISX 12 diesel engine and an Allison 4000 EVS automatic transmission and has a Hale Qmax 1,500-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump, a United Plastic Fabricating (UPF) 1,000-gallon water tank, a 20-gallon integral foam tank, and a Waterous Aquis 2.5 Class A foam system.
Ryan Slane, product manager for KME’s pumper-tanker group, says one of the ways KME shoehorned a 1,000-gallon water tank onto a short-wheelbase and short-overall-length vehicle is to extend the hosebed and tank to the edge of the truck’s body and raise it a bit higher. “With a full-width hosebed over the tank to the edge of the body, we got 14 extra inches for hose space,” Slane says. “Ladders were nested on the officer’s side, and the hosebed sits higher than is typical because we had to package the volume of the tank. But that was something Riceville was willing to do: have a higher hosebed with 1,000 gallons of water but still on a 166-inch wheelbase.”
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| 2 The Riceville pumper has a Hale QMAX 1,500-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump, a United Plastic Fabricating (UPF) 1,000-gallon water tank, a 20-gallon integral foam tank, and a Waterous Aquis 2.5 Class A foam system. |
Lewis points out that in some areas of Riceville’s