By Bill Adkins
Patterson Creek Fire Department and its 30 uniformed personnel serve the community of just over 1,200 residents in Patterson Creek located in Mineral County, West Virginia. The department realized they needed another apparatus to aid in its rural water supply operation. After looking into a few manufacturers, Patterson Creek Fire Department decided to purchase a vacuum tanker from Firovac Power Systems.
Vacuum tankers are not a new concept in rural water supply but are not well known in today’s fire service. Having a tanker that can effectively draft over 1,000 gallons-per-minute (GPM) from 100 feet away to the static water source is exactly what Patterson Creek needed. Vacuum tankers use a vacuum pump to create a negative pressure in its tank prior to arriving at the static water source. Once the suction hose is connected and the intake valve is opened water is forced into the tank via that negative pressure. The vacuum pump on a vacuum tanker has an equivalent force of over a hundred pump primers.
Vacuum tankers are extremely efficient when unloading its water as well. Vacuum tankers unload water at 5 – 10 PSI above atmospheric pressure. The added pressure created by vacuum tankers allows for the dumped gallons-per-minute to stay constant throughout the unloading process. Have you ever noticed on a conventional tanker that once the water gets below half a tank that the gallons-per-minute dumped decreases significantly? Patterson Creek’s Tanker 35 will not have that decrease.
Tanker 35
Tanker 35 is a 3,000-gallon vacuum tanker with a 1,000-gpm Darley pump. The brain of this pump is a Fire Research Corp (FRC) Throttle Xcel control system. Tanker 35 is mounted on a 2022 Freightliner 108SD chassis. Patterson Creek Fire Department went with a 400-horsepower Cummins L9 engine to help move the tanker with ease.
With 120 feet of 5-inch suction hose, Tanker 35 is equipped to reach static water sources that are not remotely close to the roadway. This unit also carries two, 200-foot 1¾ crosslays for attack lines. This Firovac tanker has an all-Whelen emergency lighting package along with Whelen sirens. Tanker 35 is equipped with LED scene lights on all sides to help make night operations run smooth. A 3,000-gallon dump tank with a manual lowering system allows this unit to unload its water completely so they can start shuttling water immediately.
Patterson Creek Fire Department plans to primarily operate this tanker as a water shuttling unit to supply the first due engine or for keeping dump tanks full of fire fighting water. Currently, Patterson Creek has the only vacuum tanker in the region and hopes other departments see this as a valuable resource if aid is needed.
BILL ADKINS is a captain with the Loveland-Symmes (OH) Fire Department Training Division/Maintenance Division.
