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Alan M. Petrillo

Mike Marquis, vice president of sales for the rescue division at Rescue 1, says the fire company "wanted an all-in-one rescue truck" that could perform multiple tasks and carry the equipment necessary for it. "This is the longest body we've built to date-28 feet," Marquis says. "That meant a wheelbase of 278 inches and an overall length on the vehicle of 44 feet, two inches."

Two-Year Process

Nick DiNicolas, chief of the East Freehold Fire Company, says the company began spec'ing a new rescue truck more than two years earlier. "We needed to replace our rescue with a larger one because we needed to fit more tools on it," DiNicolas says. "We cover four highways in our town, and we've had a lot of bad motor vehicle accidents in recent years. We wanted to carry enough Holmatro rescue tools to face any situation."

The heavy rescue that Rescue 1 built for the fire company has a 24-inch extreme duty front bumper that carries a preconnected Holmatro combi tool and a Holmatro cutter, DiNicolas says. "Also, the rear compartments on both the driver's and officer's sides are mirrored in that each one has a 100-foot hydraulic reel; a portable power unit; and a Holmatro cutter, combi tool, spreader, and rams."

DiNicolas says the East Freehold truck committee designed the heavy rescue "so that no matter which way the truck approaches an accident, we can work from either side or the front of the vehicle." He notes that the rescue also carries two Holmatro hydraulic ports-one in the middle of the truck on each side. "We can go to work off of them too," he observes.

From Medium to Heavy

Jamey Pallitto, sales manager for New Jersey Emergency Vehicles, which sold the heavy rescue to East Freehold, says the new truck is a far cry from the fire company's previous rescue, a 1997 Ford medium-duty chassis vehicle with an 18-foot walk-in body. "They bought that rescue from us when their district was a lot of farm land," Pallitto says. "The area went through a major redevelopment in the last two decades or so with a lot of big residential and commercial properties being developed. Their call volume increased a lot, and they now have one main station and two substations."

Pallitto points out that East Freehold's truck committee noted it wanted its new rescue truck to be self-sufficient when it first arrives at a call. "They wanted to carry a little bit of everything on the truck," he says. "The community had a need for an apparatus of that size. He notes that building a heavy rescue with such a long body was challenging, especially with the many features the vehicle has. "It presents more challenges from the engineering and manufacturing standpoints," he says.

Watching Weight

Marquis agrees on the challenging nature of building long-bodied rescues. "The main issue with the 28-foot body was the weight distribution," Marquis says. "Engineering had to figure

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By Don Collins

There are many ways to foul up the design of a fire station. If you do not believe me, just ask the brothers and sisters who use a station on a daily basis what they dislike about its design.

Ask yourself what you would change about the station to which you are assigned. In the language of the design professions, such questioning of "end users" and the conclusions drawn therefrom constitute part of what is called post occupancy evaluation (POE). Fire station POE can and should be used to make informed decisions for your next fire station design project. It is a way to avoid repeating mistakes that others have made in the design of a fire station.

It does not matter if your last station went online 30 years ago or last year. Do a POE. In fact, you should do a POE for as many stations as it takes to gain a clearer understanding of what you want and what you do not want in your new station. You do not have to limit your POE to stations in your district. You can go anywhere to take a look at stations that have the same basic requirements, with respect to apparatus housed, as the one you are about to have designed and built. If you are not comfortable doing a POE as a self-directed study, then contract out the task to a fire station consultant or architect thoroughly familiar with the building type.

POE can provide loads of first-hand knowledge that can be worked into a needs assessment report or similar document where you seek to justify the capital expenditure for a new station or a major renovation of an existing station to your funding authority.

Directing design consequence questions to all ranks and job descriptions is what I have engaged in for many years in POE fire station visits that number into the hundreds. As a professor in architecture at Clemson University, I did fire station POE visits as a method of addressing the academic world's requirement to have a research agenda and several areas of expertise. Second, I have done so out of a shear passion about fire stations-a passion that arose, no doubt, from the family business. I can still hear my father, uncles, cousins, and their fire station families discussing the merits of a station each time the department brought a new one online.

The empirical information gathered via POE visits constituted applied research to inform my design studio teaching inasmuch as I often used a fire station as a perfect teaching vehicle. My students never failed to get excited by the opportunity to design a fire station. What kid wouldn't?

At Clemson University, I have also had the privilege of serving with the University Fire Department. Again, serving was both passion, in continuing the family business, and a method for fulfilling Clemson's Land Grant University requirement to engage in teaching, research, and public service. Training for fire suppression and answering alarms was accepted as meeting my public service requirement. I was one lucky professor.

Serving with the career firefighters did not just happen automatically with my appointment as a faculty member. My fire service career began following an invitation from the University Fire Department's chief to serve on a jury (review) for a group of fire station projects designed by my students. Post jury, the chief asked how I knew all the jarg

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By Alan M. Petrillo

Personal protective equipment (PPE) makers are going to great lengths to ensure their structural firefighting turnout gear fits firefighters as closely as possible without limiting movement yet still provides the required protection.

It's almost as if PPE manufacturers are making custom-tailored turnout coats and bunker pants that are made-to-order for the end users. In fact, that's precisely what a number of manufacturers are doing.

Athletic Influences

Karen Lehtonen, vice president of innovation and product management for Lion, says Lion has always tried to offer better fitting gear for firefighters and that its premier line, the V-Force, takes the best technology from combat and professional sports clothing and applies it to turnout gear. "The result is an optimum balance of comfort, mobility, and protection," Lehtonen says.

Lehtonen notes that Lion has traditionally done custom sizing in addition to numeric sizing, with inseam lengths and sleeves cut to order. "Our turnouts have a more athletic cut that allows for better mobility, where the gear fits more like regular clothing so it doesn't inhibit a firefighter's movement and contribute to stress while performing tasks," she points out. "Most people fit into standard categories, but we customize turnout coats and pants for that guy or gal to be sure we get them into the right size gear."

Lion uses unique pattern shaping and installs darts and pleats in specific places on its turnouts. "We use a football shape where there is less material on the inside of the elbow and more on the outside, so the elbow bends easily," Lehtonen says. "We use a similar pattern and style for the knee, so the fabric bends more like the human body bends. To prevent hem rise, we put bellows under the sleeves that help reduce hem rise in the back of the garment."

Abby Lehman Buzon, assistant marketing communications manager for Fire-Dex, says her company's custom-fit turnout gear is the FX-R series, which uses an active posture design. "Our structural gear design team added a rock climbing gear designer and an extreme sports gear designer and came up with the FX-R, where the turnout gear is in the ready position," Buzon says. "In the turnout coat, that means it's an arms-forward design where the arms are prepositioned slightly forward and bent at the elbow. For the turnout pants, it means the pant legs are curved at the knees."

On the FX-R's turnout coat, Fire-Dex incorporates what it calls an Omni Dex shoulder, where the shoulder seam is moved up and inward to the natural shoulder bend point. "This is about function, where the garment doesn't pull up when you raise your arm," Buzon points out. "And, there's less stress, strain, and energy exertion instead of having your coat pull up against your self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) straps."

Fire-Dex also minimizes the amount of fabric in the turnout coat to minimize strain and make the coat less likely to snag on something. "We don't want excess fabric in our garments where the firefighter is moving around inside the turnout gear," Buzon says. "The gear should move with him."

Ergonomic Fit

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By Alan M. Petrillo

Although smaller rescues may not be able to carry the same amount of equipment found on traditional heavy rescues, the smaller units are being designed to reflect the particular needs of a fire department and are built to carry the equipment necessary to get the job done.

Smaller Vehicle Interest

Donley Frederickson, Rosenbauer's national sales manager, points out that many fire departments are moving toward smaller rescue chassis because they make the vehicles more affordable as well as maneuverable. "The smaller rescues are quicker and faster than the heavies," Frederickson says, "and they are much easier to maneuver into tight spaces. Also, some departments choose to have either all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive on these smaller rescues."

Ed Smith, director of the emergency vehicles group for VT Hackney, notes that in the past 12 months, Hackney has quoted on more light-duty rescue trucks than it typically has in a five-year period. "The interest level in smaller rescues has dramatically increased," Smith observes. "Reasons vary by department, but many find that it costs too much to operate heavy rescue trucks, their budgets might be pinched so they can only afford a smaller truck, and they don't need to haul all that equipment around on every call."

Smith points out that Hackney has been building small rescues on Ford F-550, Dodge D5500, and International TerraStar chassis. "If what a fire department wants to carry is the kind of equipment used for auto extrication and first-response emergency medical service (EMS) rescues, then those three chassis do a favorable job. The most popular chassis is the Ford, followed by the Dodge."

Bob Sorensen, vice president of SVI Trucks, says SVI has been building smaller rescues for some time. "These typically include a four-person cab with bucket seats and a center console in the front and two firefighters, or sometimes three, in the back," he says.

Kevin Arnold, rescue and specialty vehicle products manager for Ferrara Fire Apparatus, says he's found that the biggest rescue trend now at Ferrara is movement toward its multivocational pumper (MVP). "Many departments are finding they are running their trucks and pumpers into the ground on EMS and rescue calls, so they are moving either to an MVP or medium- or light-duty rescue trucks," Arnold notes. "In terms of the light-duty vehicles, we're building them on chassis like the Ford F-550, the Dodge Ram, and the International TerraStar-all of which are less than 20,000-pound gross vehicle weight ratings (GVWRs). But, we do more medium-duty rescues, with up to 48,000-pound GVWRs, on commercial chassis like the Freightliner M2, International 4400, and Kenworth T300 or T370."

Shane Krueger, national sales manager for Marion Body Works Inc., points out that smaller rescues typically have either two- or four-person cabs, no pump or water tank, as much compartmentation as can be fit on the body