Pleasant (PA) Fire Department was on the lookout for a pumper that reflected what it wanted in a rig, and after the truck committee saw a demo pumper built by US Fire Apparatus that was exhibited at the Harrisburg (PA) Fire Expo, it immediately began drawing up specs based on the displayed rig.
“The US Fire Apparatus demo pumper had most of what we wanted in a new pumper,” says Ryan Tipton, Pleasant’s chief. “After we went over the pumper several times, we drew up specs back at the fire station and configured them to what we were looking for in a new engine.”
Tipton notes that the department originally was considering spec’ing out a rescue-pumper which would replace a 1990 FMC pumper and a 1999 KME heavy rescue. “But the more we looked at the situation, we realized we could configure a new pumper to absorb most of the equipment for those two older vehicles,” he points out.
Jonny Carroll, executive for US Fire Apparatus, says the new rig is built on a US Fire Apparatus custom chassis and cab with a 12-inch raised roof, and a 3/16-inch marine grade extruded aluminum body, powered by a 450-horsepower (hp) Cummins L9 diesel engine, and an Allison 3000 EVS automatic transmission.
He adds the pumper has a wheelbase of 194 inches, an overall length of 31 feet, 9 inches, and an overall height of 9 feet, 9 inches, and carries a 1,500-gallon-per-minute (gpm) Hale Qmax pump, and a 1,000-gallon UPF® water tank.
Tipton says the pumper’s cab is set up to seat six firefighters, five of them in self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) seats. “The officer is in a SCBA seat, and there are two rear facing and two forward facing firefighter SCBA seats,” he says, along with two air packs mounted in wall brackets on each side of the rear wall for the driver and a spare air pack.”
Tipton points out that the pumper holds the department’s HURST Jaws of Life® eDRAULIC battery operated rescue tools of a large spreader, large cutter, set of rams and a combination tool in a Lazy-Suzan-style fixture on a slide-out tray in the rig’s rear compartment.
Regarding hand lines, Tipton says the new US Fire Apparatus engine has 3-inch piping for a deck gun, 150 feet of 1-3/4-inch inch hose in a covered compartment in the extended front bumper, and two 200-foot 1-3/4-inch hose cross lays and one 2-1/2-inch hose cross lay over the pump panel. The rig’s hosebed holds a 300-foot length of preconnected 1-3/4-inch hose and a 300-foot length of preconnected 2-1/2-inch hose, both off a 3-inch gated wye; 800-feet of 3-inch hose, and 1,200-feet of 5-inch large diameter hose (LDH).
Carroll says that he met past chief Tim Johnson at the Harrisburg show and that “the chief kept coming back with more of his members to look at our pumper. He visited the booth five times and reached out to us when we got back home. We had him work with our design engineer to design the pumper for what they needed.”
Tipton cited Johnson as the moving force in getting the new pumper from US Fire Apparatus. He notes that Johnson died of a heart attack after an EMS call before the pumper was finished, and had done an immense amount of work on the truck committee in designing and shepherding the project along. “Tim’s wife Kathy and daughter-in-law Emily Jameson, both EMS responders; and his son Michael Johnson and son-in-law Shane Jameson, both Pleasant firefighters and on the truck committee, performed the final inspection with me and Frank Scalise from the committee,” Tipton says. “We were proud to inspect the truck that Tim had put so much hard work into.”
Carroll adds that the rig has rescue style compartments covered by painted rollup doors, ladder and pike pole storage in an internal compartment on the right side of the water tank, wheel well SCBA storage, sliding trays and tool boards, and LED warning, scene, work and compartment light packages.
ALAN M. PETRILLO is a Tucson, Arizona-based journalist, the author of three novels and five nonfiction books, and a member of the Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment Editorial Advisory Board. He served 22 years with the Verdoy (NY) Fire Department, including in the position of chief.
