Special Delivery Alan M. Petrillo
The Yreka (CA) Fire Department covers a small city in a valley surrounded by mountains that don’t have a lot of roads, forcing the department to rely on four-wheel-drive vehicles to perform off-road work where ground clearance can be an issue. Added to that, the area receives a considerable amount of snow in the winter, also necessitating four-wheel-drive rigs.
Robert Goyeneche, captain at Yreka Fire, says the department runs a Seagrave 75-foot quint and a Seagrave Type 1 engine, but its four-wheel-drive fleet of a Pierce Freightliner tender, a Pierce Freightliner Type 3 wildland urban interface (WUI) engine, and an E.J. Metals Type 6 wildland engine handle all the rural, off-road, and mountainous work.
“We were having some ground clearance issues with our Type 6 on a Ford F-550 4×4 chassis, and our chief, Jerry Lemos, had seen a QTAC Super 6™ wildland pumper at a chiefs association meeting and asked me to get more information on it,” Goyeneche says. “I did all the background work and research on the pumper, and we determined that the size, weight, and off-road capability of the Super 6 was perfect for us.”
Jason Black, president of QTAC Fire and Rescue Apparatus, says the Super 6 that QTAC built for Yreka Fire is on a Ford F-550 chassis and four-door cab, with 46-inch Super Single wheels and tires and a 6-inch lift kit and a Polytough™ body with three compartments on each side, all covered by ROM aluminum roll-up doors.
Wheelbase on the Super 6 is 179.8 inches, overall length is 24 feet 2 inches, and overall height is 8 feet. Black adds that the wildland pumper has a powder-coated spring-mounted subframe, a custom aluminum rear bumper, a Buckstop steel front bumper with a hose tray, a 15,000-pound WARN winch in front, a tow-package hitch with a 7-way plug, and a Curt receiver hitch. He says the pumper, fully loaded wet, weighs in at 17,000 pounds.
1 QTAC Fire and Rescue Apparatus built this Super 6 wildland pumper on a Ford F-550 4×4 chassis and four-door cab with Super Single wheels and tires and a 6-inch lift kit for the Yreka (CA) Fire Department. (Photos courtesy of QTAC Fire and Rescue Apparatus.)
specs
QTAC Super 6™ Wildland Pumper
- Ford F-550 Super Duty 4×4 chassis and four-door cab
- Polytough 114-inch body
- WATERAX B2X 310-gpm pump powered by a Kubota 25-hp diesel engine plumbed to truck
- 300-gallon Polytough water tank
- 10-gallon foam tank
- FoamPro 1600 foam system
- 2½-inch gated direct fill
- 25 feet of preconnected 1½-inch lay-flat hose in front bumper
- One 2½-inch discharge and one 1½-inch discharge
- Hose reel with 100 feet of ¾-inch red booster hose
2 The unit has a WATERAX B2X-D902 pump that delivers a maximum of 310 gpm at 180 psi powered by a Kubota diesel engine plumbed to the truck’s main fuel tank.
3 The pump panel on the Super 6 is in an enclosed cabinet at the rear of the truck.
Black notes the Yreka Super 6 wildland pumper has a WATERAX B2X-D902 pump that delivers a maximum of 310 gallons per minute (gpm) at 180 pounds per square inch (psi), powered by a 25-horsepower (hp) Kubota diesel engine that’s plumbed to the truck’s main fuel tank. The rig has a 300-gallon Polytough water tank, a 10-gallon foam tank, a FoamPro 1600 single-agent foam system, Elkhart Brass valves, FRC digital LED water and foam level displays, Max Vision remote gauges, and an electric primer.
Goyeneche says Yreka’s Super 6 has a 2½-inch gated direct fill, 25 feet of preconnected 1½-inch lay-flat hose in the front bumper tray, one 2½-inch discharge and one 1½-inch discharge, and a hose reel with 100 feet of 1-inch red booster hose. The truck carries 300 feet of 1½-inch hose dead lay in a hosebed as well as 100 feet of ¾-inch preconnected hose at the rear of the rig.
4 The rig’s Buckstop steel front bumper has a hose tray holding 25 feet of preconnected 1½-inch lay-flat hose and a 15,000-pound WARN winch.
5 The compartments on the Yreka Super 6 have swing-out tool boards and slide-out trays to secure equipment in PAC tool mounts.
department
Yreka (CA) Fire Department
Strength: 30 paid on-call volunteer firefighters; one station.
Service area: Yreka Fire Department provides fire, rescue, first response EMS, hazardous materials response, and search and rescue response to 8,000 residents of the city of Yreka and the surrounding rural area near California’s northern border with Oregon.
Other apparatus: Seagrave 75-foot aerial ladder quint, 1,500-gpm pump, 300-gallon water tank; Pierce Freightliner 4×4 tender (tanker), 1,000-gpm pump, 3,000-gallon water tank; Seagrave Type 1 engine, 1,500-gpm pump, 500-gallon water tank; Pierce Freightliner Type 3 4×4 WUI engine, 1,000-gpm pump, 500-gallon water tank; E. J. Metals Type 6 4×4 wildland engine, 300-gpm pump, 300-gpm water tank, compressed air foam system (CAFS).
The crew cab of the wildland pumper is set up for four firefighters in nonself-contained breathing-apparatus (SCBA) seats, Goyeneche points out. “The seats have seat-back organizers that hold small first-aid kits and other personal equipment, while the cab overall has four portable radios and their chargers, the truck’s mobile radio, an iPad set up with Emergency Reporting and ActiveAlert as well as mapping, and an ice chest in the center rear of the cab,” he says.
The D1 compartment has a transverse slide that opens to 70%, Goyeneche says, which holds a backboard, long-handled wildland tools, and four wildland hose packs each consisting of 200 feet of 1½-inch single jacket wildland hose and 100 feet of 1-inch single-jacket wildland hose. “Every 200 feet of main line 1½-hose we lay, we drop 100 feet of 1-inch line off at a tee that we use for mop-up operations,” he observes.
The D2 compartment holds two Pulaski tools and a prybar for popping gate locks on a swing-out tool board, a set of irons, two shovels, and bolt cutters all in Performance Advantage Company (PAC) tool mounts.
The D3 compartment is the gasoline-powered equipment cabinet, Goyeneche says. It holds a 100-gpm Honda portable pump, a Stihl wildland chain saw in a quick mount where the blade slides into a saddle in the truck’s body, oil, fuel, and a drip torch.
The rear of the pumper holds the pump, its controls, the hose reel, a preconnected handline, two hard suction sleeves, an 8-foot folding ladder, an 8-foot pike pole, and hydrant and spanner wrenches.
The O1 compartment is the other side of the transverse, where the slide-out holds a 100-foot starter roll of 1½-inch hose, a 25-pound dry chemical extinguisher, and the truck’s inverter system.
The O2 compartment holds a 100-foot 1¾-inch hose bundle with a structure fire nozzle, an emergency medical services (EMS) trauma pack, an oxygen bottle, a defibrillator, and a burn kit.
The O3 compartment holds extra nozzles, couplings, 3- and 4-inch hose rolls, two 50-foot 2½-inch hose rolls, a 25-foot 2½-inch hose roll, and a 100-foot bundle of 1¾-inch double-jacket hose.
Five compartments are on top of the Super 6, Goyeneche says, holding 30 feet of hard suction for the Honda portable pump, 200 feet of 1½-inch single-jacket hose, a case of meals ready to eat (MREs), a case of sports drinks, and a case of water. He adds that the rig also carries an ARB air compressor onboard to keep the Super Single tires aired up properly.
Black points out that lighting on Yreka’s Super 6 includes Whelen LED M6 warning lights, 10 Whelen Duo ION LED lights, two Whelen LED Vertex lights, Whelen LED M4-V series lights, and a Whelen LED Liberty 2 Duo light bar.
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.
