Norfolk County Fire Department in Ontario, Canada covers an area of 618 square miles from 11 fire stations with six career fire officers and 254 volunteer firefighters operating 16 pumpers, two rescue-pumpers, two pumper-tankers, nine tankers, and nine rescue trucks. The department decided to replace one of its rescues with a hybrid rescue/mobile command unit and chose Fort Garry Fire Trucks to build the rig.
“We wanted a place where we could set up a unified command at a large incident where the fire, police and paramedic services incident commanders could be located in one area,” says Gord Stilwell, Norfolk County’s fire chief. “We had Fort Garry design an area in the new truck with tables in a separate room behind the crew cab with window views on both sides of the rig, and a 360-degree view on a video screen.”
Laura Scherza, Fort Garry’s contract administrator, says the rescue/mobile command truck is built on a Spartan Metro Star chassis and medium four door (MFD) cab with a 20-inch raised roof and a 20-foot walk-in rescue body constructed of 5083H-321 salt water marine grade aluminum, with AMDOR roll-up doors covering all exterior compartments. Wheelbase on the truck is 201 inches, overall length is 34 feet, 11 inches, and overall height is 11 feet, 7 inches.
The crew cab is set up to accommodate six firefighters, she points out, with three forward facing seats and one rear facing seat, as well as a medical cabinet. Scherza adds that self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) air packs are stored in a compartment over the curb side wheel well, while storage for four spare air bottles is located in the driver’s side wheel well.
Chris Pilek, center Ontario sales manager for Fort Garry, notes that access to the command area is through an exterior door on the curb side of the vehicle. He adds that the truck has a Will-Burt mast with a pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) camera mounted at the top that feeds video into a monitor in the interior command center.
Pilek says that the truck has a 125-kW Protec generator, a FRC InView 360 degree camera, a Command Light CL802A-W2 eight-head LED light tower, a Hannay electric cord reel in the L5 compartment, a Warn winch in a front bumper compartment, Fort Garry pull-out trays and pull-out tool boards, Slidemaster tip-down and pull-out trays, a dry hopper in the fender floor, and a 120-volt refrigerator.
Lighting on the rescue/mobile command unit includes Whelen LED emergency lighting, a Whelen Freedom IV red/blue LED lightbar, a Whelen Pioneer 12v LED brow light, Whelen Pioneer LED scene lights, and Luma Bar LED ground lights.
Stilwell points out that the rig is housed at Norfolk County’s Station 2, which is a water rescue station. “They also perform extrication and other types of rescue from Station 2,” he says, “so we have our HURST Jaws of Life® eDRAULIC® rescue tools mounted on a slide-out tray on the new truck, and also carry our cold water rescue entry suits, as well as personal flotation devices (PFD) and other cold water rescue equipment and tools. This truck fits our needs well, and we’re very pleased at how it negotiates some narrow streets in the old part of town.”
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.
