Pierce Teams With Darley To Produce An Innovative Pumper

By Ed Ballam

Following close on the heels of its new Velocity cab and chassis introduced last fall, Pierce Manufacturing, the nation’s largest fire apparatus builder, is adding an innovative pump and body configuration to its lineup.

Called the PUC – Pierce Ultimate Configuration – the vehicle was shown for the first time at the Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) in Indianapolis.

 “You were, perhaps, expecting us to take a breather and let our competition catch up,” said Pierce President John Randjelovic during opening remarks at the unveiling. “We don’t just sit around waiting for the next opportunity, we go out and develop it.”

The apparatus Pierce developed features a unique pump location and fire suppression system that has the pump physically located under the cab, below the rear passengers. The concept is to reduce and redistribute some of the space required for the pump and controls, without sacrificing its firefighting capabilities.

Custom-designed Pump

To achieve that goal, Pierce custom designed a pump exclusively for use on the PUC apparatus. It is made by W.S. Darley & Company, a pump builder in Chippewa Falls, Wis., about three hours away Pierce’s headquarters in Appleton, Wis. The patent-pending pump is proprietary property of Pierce and is built to its specifications and quality.

“Make no mistake, it is a Pierce pump,” said Michael Moore, Pierce’s director of platform management and new product development engineering. “We own the patterns and the tooling. Pierce, he said, investigated several pump builders here and abroad before selecting Darley.

An Experienced Partner

“We came to the conclusion we wanted Darley to make the pump for us based on a number of factors,” he said. “They have the experience. They have the track record. They have the test facilities, and they have been a great partner in this project.”

Moore said while the PUC will be exclusively available with Pierce’s new 1,500 gpm pump, the company will continue to offer pumps from Hale and Waterous on its other apparatus. “They are, and will continue to be important vendors for Pierce,” he said.

The PUC also features proprietary engine controls and a pump pressure governor built by Fire Research Corporation (FRC) exclusively for Pierce.

Richard Fix, national sales manager for Fire Research Corporation, said the company is pleased Pierce choose FRC. It was a project that was four years in the making, he said.

Paul Darley, president and chief operating officer of W.S. Darley Co., attended the Pierce unveiling and was all smiles. He said he was pleased Pierce had confidence in the third-generation family-owned company.

Randjelovic called the introduction of the PUC “the biggest news [in the fire service] since the invention of the custom chassis.”

“We come to you with the mindset of a firefighter,” he said. “This is how we at Pierce approach each and every day and every product and every vehicle on which we work.”

Wilson Jones, Pierce’s vice president of sales and marketing, predicted the PUC will have a significant impact on how the fire service builds and uses apparatus. “This vehicle is going to change how you, the firefighter, fights fire and maintains your apparatus,” he said.

Jones outlined the goals Pierce set while designing the PUC.

“You told us you want an apparatus that is easy to use, with fewer steps to operate,” he said. “You want more compartment space, lower hose beds, crosslays without going to a longer wheelbase and loosing maneuverability. You told us you want true pump-and-roll capabilities as standard, and you told us you wanted more flexibility and true, multipurpose capabilities. And you said you need a vehicle that is easy to service to reduce downtime.”

After the unveiling, Moore pointed out the features of the PUC to hundreds of people gathered in Pierce’s show booth in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis and countless more watching it live during a video Web cast.

‘Ingenious Simplicity’

“We’ve shown you this product and shown you what’s not on it, and that is a 48- to 72-inch pump house,” Moore said. “The ingenious simplicity of this design is to eliminate the pump house and a lot of the problems that go along with it.”

Moving the pump forward presented some challenges as to how to drive it, Moore said. To resolve that problem, Pierce employed the pto off the rear of the engine, which is known as the repto in other heavy truck and equipment industries.

“A repto may be new to the fire service, but it is not new to the construction industry,” Moore said. “Reptos have been used for years on cement mixers, log haulers, brick and block haulers and heavy-duty trucks.” Pierce’s parent company, Oshkosh, has been in the heavy truck business for years and has lots of experience with reptos, he pointed out.

Pump And Roll Capabilities

Reptos are ideal for the fire service because they have high horsepower and high torque ratings, Moore said, noting the repto allows Pierce to rate the pump at 1,500 gpm from draft. The drive mechanism is activated by an electromagnetic clutch system, energized by a switch mounted in the cab. It allows Pierce to offer pump and roll capability as a standard feature on all PUC vehicles.

In an interview after the unveiling, Moore said having a Class A pumper, like the PUC, with pump and roll capabilities will be particularly useful in the Midwest for urban interface fires. Many departments want one apparatus that can fight wildland fires running along roadsides as well as fight structure fires, he said. The pump and roll capabilities will be ideal for those situations, he said, especially if the department specifies a monitor or turret on the front bumper.

He explained there are only two gears driving the Pierce pump, reducing wear and the noise level during operation.

PUC pump operation has also been streamlined to two steps, he said, compared with eight to 10 steps on some conventional pumpers.

Pierce’s system consists of applying the parking brake, which automatically puts the transmission into neutral, and then activating a switch in the cab to engage the electromagnetic clutch to drive the pump. Class A foam and compressed air foam systems (CAFS) are also activated with switches on the same console in the cab.

Because the pump has been moved forward, Pierce was able to construct the preconnected crosslays so the hose is at chest height. Firefighters no longer have to climb running boards or foot pegs to deploy preconnects, according to Moore.

Above the crosslays is a transverse compartment designed for the vertical storage of rescue baskets and backboards and similar types of equipment.

The pump control panel is enclosed in a compartment behind a roll-up door, a feature Moore said keeps the panel clean and out of the elements.

The valve controls are straight lever style, like those found on top-mount pumps, and the two manifolds, mounted parallel to the frame rails, supply water to up to 12 discharges on the PUC. The top manifold is for foam discharges, while the lower one is for straight water, Moore explained.

A unique feature of the pump and plumbing design is the use of straight foam or water through the master stream with the pull of a lever, Moore said.

Compartment Space

Moving down the drivers’ side of the PUC, Moore said Pierce was able to reduce the panel size itself to 29 inches wide, as opposed to 48 to 72 inches on a standard pumper. That allows a nozzles and fittings compartment to be strategically located next to the pump panel.

Pierce was able to create 400 cubic feet of compartment space on a vehicle with a wheelbase of 187 inches, which helps the company maintain the maneuverability of the vehicle. A “megabody” is available, which pushes the compartment space to 500 cubic feet, and a shorter vehicle with a 172-inch wheelbase still affords departments 350 cubic feet of compartments.

“We decided to start off with three large compartments on each side of the apparatus and then work with the individual departments to section it off for their particular needs,” Moore explained.

Moving around to the back of the PUC, Moore pointed out the absence of a tailboard to keep the apparatus shorter and improve the angle of departure by 50 percent over standard pumpers. A drop-down step incorporated in the lower part of rear compartment door and a deployable standard built-in ladder provide safer access to the top of the apparatus for repacking hose and other needs.

Because the pump is moved forward, the water tank can be flattened slightly providing a lower hose bed without sacrificing water capacity, according to Moore, who said the featured PUC was equipped with a 780-gallon tank with a hose bed that is eight to 12 inches lower than standard pumpers.

He said PUCs can accommodate tanks with capacities up to 1,600 gallons depending on equipment and compartment configurations.

Pierce has 10,000 visitors annually touring the Wisconsin factory as firefighters pickup apparatus or drop them off for repairs and refurbishing, according to Moore. Company officials, he said, decided to tap that resource and ask the firefighters exactly what they wanted in apparatus.

“Everything always seemed to come back to five things,” he said. “Make the truck easier to use, make the truck safer, give us more compartment space, make it maneuverable, and make it easier to maintain and service.”

The fire service has been talking about how there’s a shift from fire suppression to providing more emergency medical services, but Moore said apparatus builders never seemed to make modifications to the pump house to make more room for other equipment.

“That’s one of the big paradoxes, make it big, but make it smaller,” he said. “We want lots of compartments, but we don’t want a big truck. We need a pump, but we don’t need a big pump panel that’s four to six feet long.”

Nevertheless, when fires do happen, they can be big, and the pumper needs to have the performance to knock them down, Moore said. “You really can’t compromise on the fire suppression system. Firefighters still need big pumps.”

The PUC is Pierce’s attempt to bring all the needs of the firefighter together in one apparatus, he said.

The new pump design also allows Pierce to drive a standard six-bolt pto to power other equipment and appliances, like the company’s proprietary Husky foam system, which operates on hydraulic power. The pump-driven pto can also be used to power generators and extrication tool pumps, Moore said.

Pierce addressed little details like a camera mounted on a telescoping light, transmitting a video image to a screen on the pump panel to give the pump operator the ability to see the fire scene right at the pump panel.

“We have always sold ourselves as being a sole source provider and integrating our systems,” Moore said. “We’ve had our own cabs and chassis, our own electrical systems, our own foam systems. Now, all that is coming together in a dramatic way.”

For information call 920-832-3231 or go to www.piercemfg.com.