Murrells-Inlet Garden City (SC) Fire District is a special taxation fire district covering parts of two counties along the Atlantic coast, 16 miles south of Myrtle Beach. The district’s coverage area has a big retiree population living in a large number of apartment complexes and independent living facilities, and also covers multiple storage facilities and commercial areas.
“We were running a 100-foot midmount aerial platform and a 75-foot aerial ladder quint, and couldn’t quite reach certain areas of several apartment complexes, which limited our rescue and roof operations capabilities,” says Jeff Kosto, Murrells-Inlet Garden City deputy chief. “We decided to replace the midmount platform and chose a Sutphen SLR 108-foot aerial ladder. Taking the bucket off the truck and adding eight feet to the aerial made the new rig much more accessible in those places we couldn’t hit before, and the new truck gave us a lot more room in terms of compartment space, and has a flying standpipe, which we can use to those high rises with standpipe connections.”
Jerry Harley, sales manager for Williams Fire Apparatus, who sold the truck to Murrells-Inlet Garden City, says the new rig is built on a Sutphen Monarch heavy-duty custom chassis and 73-inch extended four-door cab with a flat roof and seating for five firefighters, four of them in self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) seats. He says the rig has 110,000-psi (pounds per square inch) double domex frame rails, a 23,000-pound front axle and suspension, and a 52,000-pound rear axle and suspension, powered by a 500-horsepower (hp) Cummins X12 diesel engine and an Allison 4500 EVS Gen 5 automatic transmission, with a Leece Neville 420-amp alternator.
Harley notes that the truck has a huckbolted 304 stainless steel body with hinged compartment doors covering more than 230 cubic feet of compartment space. The Duo-Safety ground ladder complement includes a 35-foot two-section extension ladder, a 28-foot two-section extension ladder, a 24-foot two-section extension ladder, two 16-foot roof ladders, a 14-foot roof ladder, a 14-foot combination ladder, and a 10-foot folding ladder.
Ted Sacra, the district’s deputy fire marshal, says the truck has a Hale QMax 2,000-gallon per minute (gpm) single stage pump, a 500-gallon water tank, a 20-gallon foam tank, and a foam eductor system. He points out the SLR 108 has one 2-1/2-inch hose crosslay, two 1-3/4-inch hose crosslays, two 2-1/2-inch discharges on the left side, one 3-inch and one 2-1/2-inch discharge on the right side, and a 1-1/2-discharge in the 24-inch extended front bumper which also carries a Holmatro battery-powered spreader and combi tool.
Sacra says the department’s truck operators like the 16-foot jack spread on the four underslung jacks on the rig, as well as the camera system that allows them to spot where the jacks will be placed without leaving the cab. The rig has a FRC inView 360 camera system with a built-in DVR, a Hannay electric cord reel with 200 feet of electric cord, a 6-kilowatt Smart Power generator, and a Federal Q2B grill-mounted siren. The monitor at the tip of the ladder is a Task Force Tips electric Typhoon with a 1,500-gpm nozzle, and the rig’s hose bed holds 1,000 feet of 5-inch LDH (large diameter hose).
Lighting on the SLR 108 includes Whelen LED emergency lighting, two Whelen Freedom IV RotaBeam 21-inch light bars, a Whelen Summit 44-inch 12-volt LED scene light, a HiViz FireTech three-piece 72-inch LED brow light, HiViz FireTech 12-volt LED boom spotlights, FRC Spectra 12-volt LED scene lights, and a Whelen TAL65 LED traffic advisor.
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.
