Alan M. Petrillo

The Bryn Mawr (PA) Fire Company was on schedule to replace two pieces of apparatus -a pumper and a rescue-pumper-as part of its eight-year replacement plan, and its truck committee wanted to be sure to include as much firefighter safety protection on the apparatus as possible.

Chief Dan Kincade convened a 12-person committee consisting of all current company chiefs, three engineers, several past chiefs, and a board of directors member. Kincade says the committee took its current apparatus specs and decided what it wanted to keep and what to delete and then rewrote the specs for both the rescue-pumper, which the company calls a squad, and the pumper.

"We also visited some area fire companies that had newer apparatus," Kincade says, to get an idea of innovations that were available. "We put together our bid specs and got five bids back, although two of the bidders didn't meet our specs," he adds. The committee's unanimous vote was to go with E-ONE for both vehicles, he says.

Safety Features

1 The Bryn Mawr (PA) Fire Company received the first E-ONE rescue-pumper built entirely with E-ONE's ProTech safety protection package. Bryn Mawr designated the vehicle Squad 23. [Photos courtesy of the Bryn Mawr (PA) Fire Company.]

Ron Elmo, owner of First Choice Fire Apparatus, has sold Bryn Mawr a number of pumpers and rescue-pumpers over the years. "The fire company was looking for ways to enhance safety for its firefighters, so we introduced it to the ProTech products that E-ONE has available," he says. "The committee liked them and got approval to add them to the specs before the preconstruction conference."

Joe Hedges, product manager for aerials and chassis at E-ONE, says both of the Bryn Mawr vehicles were being built with all of the elements of E-ONE's ProTech system with the exception of OnGuard, added later, which is a forward-looking radar system that was just coming online for E-ONE's chassis.

2 The front of the Bryn Mawr rescue-pumper mounts the forward-looking infrared radar (FLIR) system that drives the OnGuard system in the center of the bumper. The extended bumper also carries a Holmatro combination tool, with CORETM Technology, and 60 feet of hydraulic hose on a reel.

ProTech is a comprehensive safety package for all E-ONE's chassis that includes a roll cage cab that can withstand twice the National Fire Protection Association and Society of Automotive Engineers impact requirements and five times the roof load requirements; front and side air bag systems with integrated seat belt pretensioners; electronic stability control, which constantly monitors driving conditions; an occupant detection system that gives audible and visual warnings; backup sensors that warn a driver of p

By Raul A. Angulo

The N gates have a long set of stairs that go up to the main terminal. Thank goodness for escalators. Even climbing the stairs on the escalator is a workout. I always choose to ride it up. As I was gliding up the escalator, I thought, "Too bad Ladder 6 doesn't have an escalator instead of a ladder. That would make ladder rescues fast and easy!" Alan Petrillo wrote "Alternative Lift Systems Proposed for Rescue Aerials" in the September 2011 issue of Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment. Inventor Orville Douglas Denison started studying fire-rescue technology after the extensive television coverage of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center.

1 The SpineBoard is a wedge-shaped backboard that uses conveyor-belt technology to smoothly and effortlessly load a patient safely onto the backboard. The upper board and lower carriage are attached. The wedge automatically keeps the patient in a semi "shock position." This has its advantages for hypotensive patients. (Photos by author.)

Denison came up with a rescue conveyor ladder design that was actually an "escalator for firefighters." It was a 113-foot aerial ladder with a conveyor system of rungs that could operate at 200 feet per minute, carrying a firefighter up to the tip in about 30 seconds. He also claimed his ladder could rescue four victims and have them down in four minutes. Although this conveyor-belt technology has not been implemented on fire apparatus yet, a company serving the emergency medical services (EMS) market is adapting it.

EMS is about 80 percent of our emergency work. Patient packaging and transport are the most time-consuming and physically demanding parts of it, so I'm always looking for something that is quicker, easier, and safer to accomplish this task. On the average, the fire service sustains approximately 100,000 on-duty injuries per year. Of those, my guess is that 50 percent of them are back injuries from heavy lifting and twisting.

2 Once the patient is loaded on to the SpineBoard, connect the the side rails and head rail. They slide on very easily.

In 1999, John Spanton was watching his son play high school football. Over the seasons he witnessed numerous sports injuries on the field. He watched from the stands time and time again as local emergency medical technicians (EMTs) responded with aid kits, backboard, and gurney to tend to an injured player. Knowing something about emergency medicine, Spanton knew it was paramount to immobilize the neck and keep the back straight to prevent cervical spinal injuries. Although the EMTs were doing their best, it was obvious that the football helmet, pads, and gear made it difficult to examine the patient and log roll the injured player onto the backboard for spinal immobilization and transport. Even from the bleachers, Spanton could see the player's spine being twisted and bent while EMTs packaged the patient. As he cringed, he tho

Shawn Bloemker

The session would be taught as part of a program that provides free training to thousands of firefighters in Illinois. My goal was to create a class that would teach firefighters the fire behavior terminology and smoke indicators that were necessary to recognize rapid fire events at the speed at which they occur in the field. This presented numerous challenges. The biggest challenge was the way fire behavior is traditionally taught.

Fire Behavior Training

Properly teaching fire behavior requires more than just providing a short lecture on the topic. I wanted to create a proactive approach that incorporates multiple steps. Each step would build on the previous one to accomplish its goal, similar to climbing a ladder. Unfortunately, most firefighters are expected to be ready for action after just the first step.

Although a PowerPoint® lecture is a great way to lay the foundation of terminology for future firefighters and a way for current firefighters to refresh, it is only the first step in understanding how fire behaves. Since many firefighters learn from hands-on demonstration and personal experience, I knew that integrating a live demonstration would be a much more impactful way to teach the class.

When I began teaching the class, I would ignite candles to show how the candle went from a solid to a liquid to a gas. While the candle was burning, I would review a few key fire behavior definitions to ensure that a good foundation was laid. I would then blow out the candle and reignite the smoke that was above it, causing the wick to reignite to show the definitions of ignition temperature and fire point. This demonstration created the opportunity to talk about how the smoke firefighters are crawling under is really a detached gas phase looking for an ignition source.

1 The Max Fire Box is designed to demonstrate rapid fire and smoke behavior in a compartmentalized space without the use of a burn tower or an acquired structure. (Photos by Drew Mitchell.)

By burning the candle, I demonstrated fire behavior in a limited capacity. My next challenge was to find a way to demonstrate rapid fire and smoke behavior in a compartmentalized space without the use of a burn tower or an acquired structure.

Initially, I met this challenge by using wooden boxes that were designed to allow students to witness rapidly changing conditions in a compartment during a fire. This method was successful for one of my main goals-getting students out of the classroom to see smoke behavior and rapid fire events in a controlled environment. It became the second step that prepared students for acquired structure burns and proved to be very beneficial for students. However, it had very distinct flaws. It required continuous construction of wooden boxes and had a limited burn time. Additionally, no matter how good my carpentry skills were, as the fire heated up, the wooden boxes eventually would open up at the joints, allowing too much air into the box, thereby limiting the smoke and rapid fire events I wanted to show.

After several months of burning and redesigning, I developed a reusable steel prop that provided the solution to all of the problems with the wooden boxes. In fact, it provided the solution not only to my challenges but also for live fire training. The pate