The Fairview, New York Fire Department wanted to replace an older aerial ladder with a new vehicle that had a greater amount of compartment space, as well as a pump and a water tank to satisfy its Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating. Fairview chose Rosenbauer to build a truck that fit its particular needs.
“We needed an aerial quint with a pump and a good-size water tank to take care of our ISO rating,” observes Rob Ridley, Fairview’s deputy chief, “because half of our fire district doesn’t have a municipal water supply. We also wanted to maximize the compartment space on our new truck, and needed a vehicle that would be easier to set up in some areas of our district where we had difficulties with our prior truck.”
Blake Garrison, president of Garrison Fire & Rescue, who sold the truck to Fairview, says the rig is built on a Commander™ chassis with an EXT extended aluminum body and cab with seating for six firefighters, five of them in self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) seats, and a 109-foot Viper™ four-section wireless controlled steel aerial ladder. He notes the rig has a 23,000-pound Hendrickson parabolic spring front suspension, a 54,000-pound Ridewell RD-202S rear suspension, a 236-inch wheelbase, an overall length of 42 feet 3 inches, an overall height of 12 feet, and is powered by a 500-horsepower (hp) Cummins X12 engine, and an Allison 4000 EVS transmission.
Garrison points out that the Fairview quint has a Hale Qmax-XS 1,500-gallon per minute (gpm) pump, a 500-gallon water tank, and four out-and-down outriggers with a 15-feet 6-inches jack spread and outrigger plate spotlighting, with the aerial controlled by Rosenbauer’s Smart Aerial™ system that allows operating safely over a short jacked side of the truck.
Ridley says the quint has two 200-foot 1-3/4-inch hose crosslays, one 2-1/2-inch hose crosslay, 150 feet of 3-inch dead lay above the crosslays, a front bumper 2-1/2-inch discharge that has a 150-foot 1-3/4-inch hose line and 100 feet of 3-inch preconnected with a water thief, and an Akron StreamMaster II monitor with an Akron 5178 nozzle at the tip of the aerial. He adds that the aerial quint carries bundles of 3-inch hose for supply line in an officer-s side compartment, two hose rolls of 5-inch large diameter hose (LDH) in the pump operator’s compartment, and New York hose bundles of 200 feet of 2-1/2-inch hose connected to 50 feet of 2-inch hose in another compartment.
Ground ladder storage in the torque box compartment, Ridley says, holds all Duo-Safety ladders — a 10-foot attic, an 18-foot roof, a 20-foot roof, a two-section 24-foot extension, two two-section 28-foot extensions, and a two-section 35-foot roof ladder, as well as two 16-foot pike poles, and two 8-foot and two 10-foot New York hooks.
Ridley adds that Fairview is a combination department with 27 full-time paid firefighters and 10 volunteer firefighters, working from a single station and covering four square miles with the quint and two engines. He says the department responded to 2,546 calls for service last year, 40% of them fire calls.
Garrison says the Fairview Viper has all 12-volt lighting and no generator, with the lighting including a Whelen Freedom IV LED lightbar, Whelen LED emergency lighting, and FRC Spectra LED scene lighting.
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.
