Alan M. Petrillo

Benton County Fire District No. 4, in West Richland, Washington, had to replace two aging vehicles-a 1986 International 3,200-gallon water tender (tanker) and a 1985 Freightliner Type 3 engine-but wanted a single combination vehicle that could serve both functions as well as access hard-to-reach areas that the older vehicles could never navigate.

Paul Carlyle, Benton County captain and lead firefighter on the fire district's specifications committee, says a neighboring fire department at the federal Department of Energy's Fluor Hanford site, in Richland, had been operating a half dozen older Hawk Extreme wildland tankers built by Pierce Manufacturing and that his firefighters had worked with them on mutual aid. "Those were the first-generation units that Pierce made in 2004 and 2005, and we liked the way they performed," Carlyle says. "We liked their quick knockdown capabilities, the amount of water they carried, and the way they were able to get into places other vehicles couldn't."

1 Benton County (WA) Fire District No. 4 turned to Pierce Manufacturing for a 2013 Hawk Extreme wildland tanker to replace two older apparatus: a 1986 International tender (tanker) and a 1985 Freightliner Type 3 engine. (Photos courtesy of Pierce Manufacturing Inc.) Click picture to view video.

Carlyle says his committee drew up specs for what they wanted in a similar vehicle, put the specs out for bid, and ultimately awarded the contract for a Hawk Extreme to Pierce Manufacturing.

Reintroduction

Chad Trinkner, director of aerial, pumper, and fire suppression product management for Pierce Manufacturing, says the Benton County Hawk Extreme is the first unit that Pierce delivered after resuming production of the model. "We discontinued it in 2007 because Caterpillar stopped making the Cat C13 engine we used in the truck," Trinkner says. "We didn't have an engine to put in it, so we discontinued the model but brought it back in 2012 with a Cummins ISL9 450-horsepower diesel engine."

Benton County's Hawk Extreme is an all-wheel-drive vehicle that carries a 2,500-gallon water tank, a hydraulically driven Darley HH-500 single-stage 500-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump, a 60-gallon foam tank, a Husky 3 foam system, and a Hercules 120-cubic-feet-per-minute (cfm) compressed air foam system (CAFS). The tanker is outfitted with two 95-gpm front turret discharges that can rotate 180 degrees horizontally and 90 degrees above and 60 degrees below horizontal.

2 The Benton County Hawk Extreme built by Pierce is powered by a Cummins ISL9 450-hp diesel engine and an Allison Gen IV EVS 4500 six-speed automatic transmission and can operate in full time all-wheel drive to get the vehicle in nearly inaccessible places.

The Hawk Extreme also has two half-inch ground sweep nozzles, one at each outside corner of the vehicle below the bumper; three 10-inch dump valves, one on each side and one at the rear of the truck; and a Hannay electric hose reel carrying 200 feet of one-inch hose.

By Alan M. Petrillo

As 2014 has progressed, the industry's manufacturers have introduced a number of interesting apparatus and equipment to fire departments around the country.

To list them all would be impossible, but here are several that caught our eye during the first six months of 2014. The products range from fire suppression vehicles to new chassis, personal protective equipment (PPE), self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), nozzles, and electronics.

Equipment

On the equipment side of things, Draeger recently introduced the Comfort Vest, a garment that firefighters wear next to the skin to help absorb excess body heat when working in high-temperature surroundings or performing tasks that are physical enough to cause excessive sweating. The vest's cooling action comes from 20 individual Phase Change Material (PCM) elements integrated into the inner lining.

1 Draeger's Comfort Vest is a next-to-the-skin garment firefighters wear to help absorb excess body heat. (Photo courtesy of Drager.)

Draeger says that at 82°F, the contents of the PCM elements gradually become liquid and absorb the excessive heat, reducing skin temperature by between 37 and 39 degrees. It reports the cooling benefit of the vest can last up to four hours.

Task Force Tips (TFT) is producing the Transformer Piercing Nozzle system that features a twist-grip shutoff valve, a three-port junction block with a striking head, two extension tubes, and the flow tube with a hardened piercing point. It's designed to deliver water or foam solutions to inaccessible areas and has a rated flow of 150 gallons per minute (gpm) at 100 pounds per square inch (psi). TFT also has introduced the Jumbo Low Profile Ball Intake Valve, a 5¼-inch-diameter waterway that maximizes flow with very low friction loss. The 30-degree intake elbow can swivel 360 degrees, has multiple positive detents, and includes a cap lanyard anchor point.

2 Task Force Tips makes the Transformer Piercing Nozzle system designed to deliver water or foam to inaccessible areas. (Photo courtesy of Task Force Tips.)

Elkhart Brass now makes the Flex Attack, a new compressed air foam (CAF) nozzle that can be quickly switched between wet foam, dry foam, and water only through a 15⁄16-inch smooth bore without shutting down. The Flex Attack is rated at 184 gpm at 50 psi in a water setting and has a maximum operating pressure of 200 psi.

3 Elkhart Brass Co. makes the Flex Attack, a compressed air foam nozzle that can quickly switch between wet foam, dry foam, and water. (Photo courtesy of Elkhart Brass Co.)

Darley has developed a new ultra-high-pressure (UHP) high-volume pump, the UHP-HV, through its Odin Foam subsidiary. The system is available in a gasoline version and a diesel-powered model run by a 24½-hp Kubota water-cooled engine. At low pressure, the UHP-HV puts out 100 gpm at 130 psi, 200 gpm at 100 psi, and 300 gpm at 30 psi. At high pressure, the pump delivers eight gpm at 1,200 psi, while at high volume it will pump 237 gpm at 100 psi.

Robert Tutterow

Fire departments have many measures to determine their competency. There are the Insurance Services Office (ISO) Fire Suppression Rating Schedule, the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI), and various National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards. NFPA 1500, Standard on Fire Department Occupational Safety and Health Program, is the most comprehensive standard.

None of the above provides a pathway to total competency. ISO ratings are only relevant because many communities rely on them to determine insurance rates. Fire departments that have achieved an ISO rating of 1 are rightly proud of their distinction and usually display the rating on the side of their apparatus, their letterheads, their business cards, and various signage. Likewise, for the approximately 200 accredited fire departments, the accreditation logo is prominent on their fleets and published materials. Both of these measurements are "verified" by an outside agency, although accreditation involves a lot of trust by the Accreditation Commission on what the fire department reports.

The third measurement listed is NFPA 1500. No outside agency arrives at a department's front door and "raises the hood" to determine the viability of its health and safety program. There is no lettering, decal, logo or visible signage to showcase if a department is NFPA 1500 compliant. Perhaps if there was, we would see more of a focus on firefighter health and safety. Yet year in and year out, the leading cause of firefighter deaths is medically related. Total compliance with Chapter 10 of the standard, "Medical and Physical Requirements," would likely cut the annual line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) more than any other single measure the fire service could take. Amazingly, a fire department can be accredited, have a Class 1 ISO rating, and still not provide medical examinations as prescribed in NFPA standards. Where is the missing link?

NFPA 1500 Compliance

If every fire department were totally NFPA 1500 compliant, LODDs would be as rare as they are in other countries. The standard provides fire departments with a roadmap for total quality improvement.

In the early 1990s, NFPA 1500 was on the tip of almost every firefighter's tongue because of controversies surrounding the standard. The primary battle was over minimum staffing, and the battle lines were clearly drawn. In the end, minimum staffing did not become a part of the standard. Since then, NFPA 1500 has been a "back-burner" issue. This phenomenon defies logic, at least from a legal perspective. For example, firefighter deaths and injuries are susceptible to litigation against the fire department, its command staff, and the governing body (municipality, county, tax district). Yet a fire department has nothing to fear for failing to be accredited or for having a lesser ISO rating.

Fire departments are not required to be compliant with NFPA 1500 or any other NFPA standard unless the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) adopts the standard. Nonetheless, fire departments have been held accountable for failing to adhere to nationally recognized standards even if the AHJ adopted them. If you are in Texas, you are aware that the Texas Commission on Fire Protection has adopted several NFPA standards, and it performs occasional fire department inspections to check for compliance.

Annex B

Fire departments should do everything possible to meet the requirements of the standard. Admittedly, very few, if any, fire departments are 100 percent NFPA 1500 compliant. Nonetheless, a wise fire department should have a "working&q

By Alan M. Petrillo

Fire departments around the country, but especially in the West, Southwest, and Midwest, are fitting out small, easy-to-maneuver vehicles with skid units that are useful not only for wildland fires but also in urban interface situations.

Skid Unit Evolution

Jerry Halpin, vice president of sales and marketing for CET Fire Pumps, says that skid units have come a long way in the past 40 years. "Most of the innovation today is found in the pump and its capacity, both in pounds per square inch (psi) and gallons per minute (gpm), and in the application of different agents such as foam and other types of wet water that might not have been available even 15 years ago," he says.

Such units, called both skids and drop-ins, are not terribly large in terms of size or weight, Halpin observes. "They are much more efficient than ever before, can be put on a wider variety of vehicles that only carry a limited amount of weight, and have more firepower and gpm available," he points out.

CET Fire Pumps makes a series of what Halpin calls "quick-delivery skid unit models," from the basic Econo Pac with a pump capacity of 20 gpm at 125 psi and 60-gallon water tank to the Attack Pac, carrying a 20-horsepower midrange fire pump that delivers 265 gpm at 50 psi, 190 gpm at 100 psi, 115 gpm at 150 psi, and 45 gpm at 200 psi. The Attack Pac also has a 200-gallon fully baffled polypropylene water tank. Other CET skid units are the Ready Pac, Skeeter Space Pac, and Ultra Power Pac.

Typically, CET skid units are powered by six-, nine-, 11-, or 20-horsepower (hp) gasoline engines, although diesels are available for some skid unit models. The skids are most often mounted on Ford chassis, Halpin says, from F-150 to F-550 models.

1 W.S. Darley Company makes the Fast Attack 2 skid unit, available with a variety of Darley pumps and water tank sizes and with the Foam Flurry around-the-pump-foam system. (Photo courtesy of W.S. Darley Company.)

In using skid units, Halpin notes, the issue continues to be "applying the right amount of water at the right psi." He continues, "And especially in forestry work, it is getting into remote places to create a fire stop where the fire won't be able to burn through or to use a skid unit to extinguish hot spots."

Skid Pumps

Jason Nawrocki, OEM sales manager for Waterous, says his company has been seeing an increase in both inquiries and purchases for pumps being used in skid unit applications on smaller fire apparatus. "There are so many different styles of apparatus in how you fight a fire, particularly a wildland fire, that require a more tactical response with 4x4 vehicles, often with pump-and-roll capability," Nawrocki says. "In many of those cases, the slide-in skid unit is the way to go because it allows the fire department to be more agile and tactical in its response."

Nawrocki says that the increased interest in Waterous pumps for skid units "comes from all around the country but is pretty dense in the western United States and Canada, likely because of the drought."

For skid units, Waterous makes the PB series pumps, with an 18-hp gasoline-powered Briggs & Stratton engine, in both volume and pressure versions. Its diesel series, the E300, is an end-suction 300-gpm-capable pump powered by a Kubota engine.

"Our most popular skid unit is the E500 series, a 24.8-hp Kubota diesel with an electronically controlled throttle," Nawrocki says. "We sell a lot of the high-pressure E501 wildland models in the western United States."