Pierce, Pumper. Saber cab and chassis; Cummins ISL 450-hp engine; Waterous CS 1,250-gpm pump.

Alan M. Petrillo

Good Intent Fire Company No. 1 is one of seven fire companies that make up the Pottsville (PA) Fire Department, and Good Intent is charged with serving as the department's rapid intervention team (RIT) as well as supplying a first-due pumper for its coverage area in the city's downtown business district.

The fire company's response area is well supported by hydrants with an ample water supply but consists of some very tight streets and very steep hills, making the overall length and wheelbase of a new pumper considerations in its design. Good Intent also provides RIT services for several surrounding communities, so having seating for 10 firefighters and enough compartmentation to carry the specialized RIT equipment in an easily accessible configuration was a primary concern.

Three Good Intent firefighters, one of them a Pottsville assistant chief, work at KME and communicated the fire company's needs to the manufacturer. Mark Higgins, contract specialist at KME and first lieutenant in Good Intent, says there were several reasons the fire company approached KME about building its pumper. "We chose KME because the factory is close to our fire company-about 50 minutes by road-three Good Intent firefighters work at KME, and we had a good opportunity to oversee the vehicle from inception to completion."

1 The KME-built PRO pumper for the Good Intent Fire Company No. 1, Pottsville, Pennsylvania, is powered by a Cummins 505-horsepower ISX 12 turbo-charged diesel engine and an Allison 4000 EVS automatic transmission and is built on a 189-inch wheelbase with a 31-foot, eight-inch overall length, which allows the pumper access to tight city streets. (Photos courtesy of KME unless otherwise noted.)

Equipment Storage Needs

Jason Witmier, KME's product manager of aerials, also Pottsville Fire's assistant chief, says, "Because we went into taking RIT calls, we had to move from our prior pumper with seating for six firefighters to seating for 10, along with carrying all the extra RIT equipment. We needed to have good operating space inside the cab yet still maintain a manageable wheelbase to function on some very tight streets. We came up with a 189-inch wheelbase, which was an inch shorter than our previous pumper."

However, the new KME PRO pumper on a Predator XLFD chassis has a 22-inch raised roof and added 110 cubic feet more compartment space than the previous rig. "Our new PRO pumper has 29-inch-deep full-height and full-depth compartments plus four full-size coffin compartments on top," Witmier says. "We were able to keep the ladders low in a tunnel under the 500-gallon United Plastic Fabricating water tank. The pump on the vehicle is a Waterous CXS 1,500-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump, and there's a 30-gallon foam tank integral with the water tank."

Firefighting and Rescue

Witmier notes that the pumper typically runs in a city where there's a fire hydrant on every block. "We didn't need a bigger water tank," he observes. "We can easily hook into a hydrant by the time we use up our 500 gallons of water."

Clive Savacool

It's 03:00. You're in bed at the firehouse. You've already run 14 calls this shift, and you finally get to sleep.

You're awakened by the familiar station tones, and you hear multiple units dispatched with your engine company listed first; you know it's going to be a structure fire in your first due. With your heart racing, you get to the engine and start dressing into your gear that still has the strong car-fire smell on it from two hours earlier. En route to the fire, you see a large black column of smoke and you get updates from dispatch that they're receiving multiple calls of a resident unaccounted for.

Pulling up on scene, you take a preconnected hoseline through the front door of a well-involved house and proceed to knock down the fire just like you have so many times before. You find the resident in a back bedroom closet, but she's suffered major burns and is obviously deceased. You leave her in place for the investigators. Twenty minutes later, drenched in sweat and covered in ash, you exit the house to change your self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) bottle and head back in for overhaul. After that bottle finishes, you and your crew decide the smoke is mostly dissipated so you take off your SCBA and finish overhauling the structure. An hour later, you're back at the station. You and your crew are putting the rig back together and then you sit down in the apparatus room for some coffee before getting off shift.

1 The Exposure Tracker is designed to collect objective information of all the toxic exposures, injuries, and communicable disease exposures firefighters face every day. By logging incident details, such as the types of structures involved and the activities performed, a firefighter can use the program's analytics to have a greater level of awareness for his health and welfare. (Photo courtesy of The Exposure Tracker.)

You head home from the shift with that sunburned, dried out feeling on your face and some blisters on your ears but otherwise feeling like all you need is a nap to fully recover. Most of us have had enough of these experiences that we've forgotten the majority of them. In reality, the previous 24 hours had serious effects on your body and mind. The multiple exposures to smoke are mounting factors for cancer; the constant highs and lows with heavy exertion are a path to heart disease; the smoke and particulates can lead to chronic lung disease; the diesel exhaust and soot in the apparatus room can lead to bladder cancer; and the psychological effects of seeing a traumatic fatality is one more trigger for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our dream job is one of the most self-destructive professions.

Tracking Exposures

So, do we stick our heads in the sand and say, "It's all just part of the job?" Or, do we embrace change and find ways to improve our profession so that we can thrive in both our career and our retirement? We must acknowledge that we're human and that we can't go through hell with the expectation that everything will "go away" at the end of the day.

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