By Alan M. Petrillo
The Edmeston (NY) Fire Department was in the market for a top-mount pumper to replace a similar unit that had served its useful life and needed to be retired. While Edmeston firefighters wanted to duplicate the older vehicle, they still had some tweaks they wanted to make to the new pumper to make it more user-friendly.
Art Klingler, Edmeston's chief, says the truck committee found a local sales representative to work with in Dick Shakerly of Shakerly Fire Truck Sales. "We developed the specs and sent them out to a total of seven manufacturers," Klingler says. "In the end, the only bidder was Toyne, which was fine because we had seen some of their pumpers and had researched the company."
Klingler notes that the department's previous top-mount pumper had a 1,250-gpm pump on it and a 1,500-gallon water tank. "The old pumper had a Newton dump on it, but we didn't use it very much so we eliminated it on the new pumper," he points out. "We changed the pump to a 1,500-gpm model, kept the water tank at 1,500 gallons, and added a foam system, foam tank, and a hydraulic ladder rack."
Shakerly says the new top-mount Toyne pumper is built on a Freightliner M2 four-door cab and chassis with seating for five firefighters and is powered by a Cummins ISL 350-hp diesel engine,and an Allison 3000 EVS automatic transmission. The 1,500-gpm pump is a Hale QFlow, and the water tank is made by UPF. The pumper has a 25-gallon Class A foam tank and a FoamPro 2002 foam system. Cost of the pumper was $350,000, he says.
"Another change we made from our old pumper was the FoamPro system and the foam tank," Klingler says. "Previously we had used an eductor system, but this new system allows us to have foam capability at all of our six discharges." The pumper has two 1¾-inch crosslays, one 2½-inch crosslay, a one-inch booster reel, and two dead lays that can be connected to two 2½-inch discharges at the rear of the vehicle.
Edmeston's protection district is largely rural, covering 91 square miles, the towns of Edmeston and Burlington, and a population of approximately 3,600 where it provides fire suppression, rescue, and emergency medical services (EMS) response. It operates out of one station with 48 volunteer firefighters.
"We have a lot of hills and tight roads in our district, so we kept the water tank size down to 1,500 gallons so the truck could be on a single rear axle to be more maneuverable," Klingler notes. "Because of the hills, we went with the 350-hp engine. We also added a Jacob's brake and chose not to have an onboard generator because the Fire Research Co