Rural FD Tankers

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Permalink Reply by SMOKEnPipesJim on December 28, 2007 at 1:27am

IF I may say... although I am a Career guy in a city department, I've done tanker shuttles with a 750 gallon tank rig back in the days before we had porta ponds... I've also driven 1850 up to 8,000 gallon tanks including single axle with 3200 tags and two axle fixed and 3 axle 2 fixed and a tag as well as tractor trailers..(oil) the biggest thing, I will say is that in many areas we dont have the drivers with experiance as we did years ago.
I learned how to drive a standard on a C 60 Chevy dumptruck with a 4 and 2 speed rearend thrugh a flatbed on it and got my class one Lic at age 18... My qualifying engine was a 1976 Maxin with a 671 detroit and 5 speed spicer Transmission.. you had to Know how to drive it ... I was lucky enough to have had the experiance to be able to wheel 3 Mack DM's one with a twinstick 5x2 , 5x3 and 5x4 as well as wheeling an ALF pump with No power steering 5 speed squaretooth and detroit powered again You had to know how to drive it.. today our "pumps' " have 500 HP and push button trannies which are a hellava lot scarier then Most of the tankers I am hearing described in here. .... I read one entry about a ford L-9000 which was slow and only a half dozen members would drive it.... Thats Great, because a truck with 2500 Gallons has no need tobe doing over 40 mph anyway .... Making it easy to get over 45 -55 is hell unsafe, Until you start some extensive Training on how to handle them... GETTING TO the incident in one piece ismoreimportant then pushing the envelope, killing the members riding or innocents enroute to something that is simple put someone elses Screwup is just freaking stupid ... If You choose tolive 30miles from the firehouse then expect rubble if you screw up.. period I know we all want to do better butNo one's life is worth THATand for those reasons ....:)

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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on December 28, 2007 at 7:43am

Jim, you are right on with the training aspect. Regardless of homebuilt or custom built tankers, one needs to drive on a regular basis to stay familiar with the handling characteristics of each truck.

I've been guilty of driving a pumper like it was my POV, back in my younger years. This was the only auomatic tranny-equipped truck we had at the time and it drove like a car... well almost. So I can understand how easy it is to get carried away behind the wheel, especially when the adrenaline is flowing. Training, training and more training is what's needed.

Funny you should mention a 750 gallon "tanker" - "back in the day" we did tanker shuttles with 750s and 1000s routinely. We pumped into a 2 1/2" line hooked to a clappered Siamese, which was hooked to a nurse pumper. It was a delicate balancing act between the tank/pump, tank fill and inlet levers to keep water flowing smoothly and not pissing off the guys on the nozzle.

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Permalink Reply by SMOKEnPipesJim on December 28, 2007 at 7:08pm

THat was mY only Point Joe, as far as 750 tank shuttles ,you were trained and even if youhappened to be solo, You worked or learned quickly how to work efficiantly... I once was tasked /Volunteered to set up our spanking new Hahn (1983) as If it was an off the cuff set up of course , responded Alone to the particular Pond, spotted , then connected 3 REal hard sleeves and strainer attached them (again by myself) after cutting a hole in the ice of course, then set up 4 sets of 2 2 1/2 lines spaced so that I could accept 4 "rigs" to be filled or be in various stages of hooking up, unhooking and moving the line up without interupting the Tanker shuttle at the other end.. It was hell, and it then was frantic, and once the operation got going we had about 13 or 14 rigs the largest was one of 2 local 2500's the rest were 500-1500... I dont recall the "time" since the frantic focus went from doing it to really doing it... But It was like 13 minutes stopped when the 3rd rig hooked up... in those days we did stuff like that because I wanted to see IF I could actually do it alone.. since I often was alone when i responded... Happy to say that oncethe 2 deck guns and one ladder pipe began they never lost water ..I cant recall , what they figured we flowed total..... Like I said I was focused on other stuff... :)

Another point about the "girly feel" of the apparatus these days iswghen You climbed behind the wheel, which was typical to your ALF's Seagraves, Macks, Maxims etc.. They Felt Like you were Driving a truck.. today They have about the same feel as one of those Playschool U drive toys like Maggie Simpson steers with Marge in the opening to the show.., add that to auto tranny and the loss for that "BIG azzed truck feeling" along with huge power plants as stated many are over 500 hp now .. I My self am heavy footed and frankly You havent been for a ride with me unless I'vemade you scream like a girl, or at least squeeked like a mouse once... lol ... Training Training training yes, and beyond that Some parking lot slippery conditions training with professional drivers wouldn't be a bad idea either....if the speed limit says 20 you should be doing 12 to 17, 30 = 20-25 , average mind you 45 , doing 40 is pushing it on most roads in rural areas, what if , anticipate , expect...I personally have developed a 6th sense often ccoming into a turn area or intersection, I visualize "something" Like a pickup halfway in my lane for instance and more times then NOT, up the bend it happens.. ON the Highway, I will be driving along and about 89% of the time , I'll tell youthe car in the middle is gonna cut off a guy coming up on the far left.. and it happens, enough To know I would trust my instincts... IF your Not Familiar with a road, driving it like your Jackie Stewart isnt going to get you to the scene...anyone ever experiance Brake fade? No a pleasant feeling going through a intersection, or stopped traffic just at the bottom of an off ramp... we IN my state have had Big problems in one particular state road where guys in trucks (Pros') have killed dozens coming down "Avon Mountain" which is barely a hill by mountain standards in most areas... why? because drivers are not paying attention, lack knowledge and skills, Your NOT driving a SUV, Your driving that tanka ( I feel like Mel Gibson) gear down , Use the engine brake and or tranny manually downshift the tranny to the same gear range going down as you would use Going up, and you will survive ... :) Maybe

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Permalink Reply by Glen "Darren" Borror on December 31, 2007 at 12:31pm

I truely agree that training is a must when it comes to tanker shuttles. It is important to learn how to use them in a fashion that will provide the most smoothly and SAFE operation with the flows to meet fire demand. I had the oportunity to work with Insurance agencies to try to meet the criteria of their set ISO ratings. Within that, our department had to prove that we could meet the fire flow demands for 1 hour to increase our rating. The idea of this was to try to reduce insurance rates within our district. The test was set up with 4 tankers and 3 engines. 2 engines (1000 gpm) at the scene and 1 (1500 gpm) at the water supply set up 2 miles away. The test required that the tankers ran a block pattern, time was set at average alotted times of arrival of that tanker to my departments runs (1 year tallied average), dump, cycle then redump. We found that every tanker had different fire flows. Dependant was the design of the tank, size of tank, ventalation of the tank (escapeing air when being filled and intake of air when dumping), size and design of the dump (side, rear, square, round or inches in diameter), the safe speed of the apparatus and most importantly- the experience of the operator. We used all kinds; gravity, vaccum, pto dump and jet assisted tankers (free flow of water with a pipe by the interior of the dump site with pressure on it to help "force" the water out. The results of this test were very surprising. Our departments tanker did best at flow. The tanker again was a 1979 international w/ split 5X2 axle with 2200 gal. tank with 3 - 2 1/2" intakes and a 12" square dump on rear of tank. Now, think about your tanker and how many GPM your tanker should produce in this scenerio before reading on. Well, I tell you, we thought we would be able to flow a lot of water with this tanker, some of our guys thought that our tanker would flow 3000 gpm because we could dump all 2200 gal in 42 seconds!! Well, not so. After cyleing 2 rounds we found that we could not keep up with the engine on the scene. My tanker (I was selected by the Chief to be driver/operator) was only flowing 140 gpms. We had a discussion about what we could do different to help increase that. We ended up doing 2 things different. #1, open the vent hatch on top and tie it in the open position to cure a vent problem we were having due to the holes not being as big as our dump. #2, we did not allow all the water to flow out of the tanker. We found that when we could see the water flowing out was about 1 inch thick, that were were beginning to lose flow effectiveness. We again started the cycle and we were able to maintain a flow of 165 gpm. The next tanker was a 1500 gal w/ jet assist. It flowed 125gpm, the other two were close at 120 gpm. Now, you do some 5th grade math and you only come up with 530 gpm with 4 tankers!! Not near enough to match the required flow. Needless to say, we got to keep our fire rating of 9. This impacted a lot of departments in our state when this was found out. The department I was on never did anything about it and was content on the level 9 rating as other departments did not want to tax their department sending tankers to us at initial call. Our goal at the time was 1500 gpm to raise us to a rating of 6, which would have saved a home owner 33% on their premium per year!! A county north of us got with the program though. They have their county set up so that, like ours - the First in station dumped (2 engines, 1 tanker, 1 rescue, 1 grass truck for supply) with 2 additional tankers and their grass trucks initially dispatched to the call. The rest of the county would start bringing guys to their stations for standby. Once the OIC declares a working fire, they start " THE SHUTTLE". This dumps every tanker in the county to the scene. The outter departments would come in, dump then return to station unless the OIC requested that they cycle again, which would send them to the water source to maintain fire flow.

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Permalink Reply by Randy Lyons on December 31, 2007 at 7:39pm

For the first 5 years of our departments life we used an old Military Duece and a Half on loan from the State Forestry Dept. We had 2 - 600 gal fuel tanks mounted with Hale 450 gas pump. It worked fine for what it was but being in a 25 sqaure mile rural response area with NO hydrants we were stretched to respond in a timely manner. The truck was slow and the tanks were very high mounted which made off road manuvering extremely dangerous. So in 2004 we applied for and received an AFG grant which we used to by a 2004 Sterling Actera Vacuum Tanker built by Water Master in Hattisburg Mississippi. The truck chassis was built for a Rock Truck with a heavier frame and lower gearing ratio. It has a Mercedes 350 engine which gives it plenty of power and the vacuum system allows us to refill our 2500 gal tanker from ponds,streams,and cisterns in just over 2 minutes. It also can have pressure added to the sealed tank and it can also unload that 2500 gal of water in less than 2 minutes.

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Permalink Reply by Michael DeMasi on February 5, 2008 at 5:15pm

The dept. I was on made our own. Basically, we took a heavy duty truck chassis and put our own tank on it. The tank was made from 1/2" steel welded together. It was the shape like if you took a square box and about half way up the sides angled it toward the middle slightly. It was about 8' at the top and about 4' at the bottom. We even built in baffles. The were 1500 gallons. Amazingly, they were also pretty stable.

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Permalink Reply by mike wright on February 5, 2008 at 11:10pm

We have an old milk tanker, but it was cut down from 3000 gallons to 1800. This way it is lighter for the chassis and easier to get in and out of the driveways in the area. We left the baffles in the tank for saftey reasons. This set up works for us and we havent had any issues with it yet. knock on wood lol.

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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on February 6, 2008 at 5:15pm

Since milk weighs more than water, I have a feeling that older milk type trucks wouldn't be so bad. Old fuel trucks (even military surplus) seem to be a heavier hitter for close calls and occurances because fuel weighs less per gallon than water. Routine Maintainance (and I mean 100% regular inspections) has to be done. The reports also showed that most of the tanker conversions that resulted in accidents werefrom the fire department taking away the safety features. (removing baffles etc)

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Permalink Reply by Ted Bownas on February 18, 2008 at 9:23pm

This is interesting for me - we run a 1988 GMC/Ranger 1500 tank/1250 pump as our tanker, and it's due for replacement this year (20-year plan). We're looking to go up to a 3000 tank/1750 pump combo, and we have length and height limitations due to the size of our bays. One mfg has a custom cab w/ a short overhang which would give us the shortest overall length we've found, but it's only available with a 370HP eng max. Other salesmen are telling us that won't power the truck in our terrain. I'm not new to this process - this is my fifth apparatus committee - and the other pumpers I've worked on feel (to me) too fast when driven. The Allison electronic transmissions that seem to be spec'd on every truck these days shift to top gear at 35mph, and continue to accelerate effortlessly (at least on our newer rigs) up to the governed speed. My inclination is to stay with the smaller engine, and gear the rear end to compensate for the terrain. It's plenty big enough to run the pump, and in the grand scheme of things, does it matter whether it takes the tanker (typically 2nd or 3rd due) 3 minutes or 5 minutes to get to the scene? Not to me - just gives the IC another minute or two to get his ducks in a row and figure out where the heck all these *@#%&*# trucks are going to fit at the scene.:-)

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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on February 19, 2008 at 10:22pm

There has to be an optimum size tanker for FD operations. For instance, 1000 gallons is probably an absolute minimum, but you need a bunch of them to keep a decent fire flow. 3000+ gallons in a tank would seem to be preferable but the size of the truck may require a tractor-trailer combination, with the result that few members would be able to drive the rig.

Also, the maneuverability of a tractor-trailer rig on a narrow country road is very limited; the extra time required to turn such a beast around, and the time to refill, are other factors that make me think that these would be too big.

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Permalink Reply by Crockett on May 30, 2008 at 11:18pm

Agreed, Joe.

The size of our tanker (9400 gals.) is a great asset to us & our neighboring districts; the ICs have (many times) been happy to see us pull up as the engines run dry. You are absolutely right, however, when you say that it is tough to man the thing; we are currently training our FFs to get their CDLs, but until then we have to rely on 3 guys- one, a vol who is a FF for one of those neighboring districts.

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Permalink Reply by Capt 723 on May 31, 2008 at 9:01am

...and how many of us can actually house a tractor trailer combination? Leaving it set outside is not an option in the bleak mid winter.

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