This guy from Europe.

[bum291]

I'll try to introduce myself properly now, it's about time.

I am a 26 year old student and also a volunteer firefighter in two cities, my home town and the city where I study. I come from Finland, but lived in Greece for 2 years, after inspecting their fire service I was convinced we do things better up here (sorry to any Greeks who might be reading this and felt offended, you are welcome to come and see how we work, then convince me I was wrong). I have been in the fire service for a few years now, I've been trough hundreds of hours of schooling and countless hours of training.

We do things a bit different in Finland, no trucks, aerials instead, and 95% of those are Bronto or Vema skylifts. Engine crews are trained to do everything. As standard, the engines might be equipped to handle fires, traffic incidents, smaller hazmat, water rescue and medical calls. Pretty much any town with more than 15'000 people will also have full time firefighters.

Our vehicles are built on commercial chassis, Scania being the most popular one, they usually have 6 seats, but 5 isn't all to rare and 8 has been seen also. We don't use speedlays, but rather hosebags I have a couple of pics of those: http://i409.photobucket.com/albums/p...1/slanghck.jpg (a hosebag on it's own) and here a few in the back of engine T11 http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...v__-08_015.jpg Notice the pre connected manifold, for faster deployment.
It also has a Cobra CCS, that's the gray box, the red lance in the middle and the reel on top.

Deployment is very rapid, during training we can pull out 76 mm hose, connect it to a manifold and stretch 39 mm hose from it, connect a nozzle and have water flowing in a minute, but that's training.

I'll put a few more pictures to try to describe how our stuff looks like.

[bum291]

I have a few links here, showing what some of our engines and rescues carry, hope someone likes it.

http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...elsinki_25.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...ent=H25_hs.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...nt=H25_bak.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...ent=H25_vs.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...ent=H41_hs.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...nt=H41_bak.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...ent=H41_vs.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...rrent=KN11.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...ent=K11_vs.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...nt=k11_bak.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...ent=K11_hs.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...=O152_kran.jpg
http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/p...=multilift.jpg

[ponebutton2]

Thanks for posting all of the pictures - certainly seems as if everything is well organized and stored. The Cobra CCS concept is interesting.

I am a little confused about the hose bag you mention. Loks to be a simple metal frame to hold the hose, etc rather than a bag. Why do you call it that?

In USA a hose bag is generally considered a female appliance rather than a firefighting tool.

[bum291]

I did of course show the better part, most are well kept but there are of course exceptions to the rule.

Correct about the 'frames', they come in various shapes and materials and it's a straight translation. The metal wire frames are called 'cages' by some, but I believe national instructions talk about bags. The basic principle is the same for all versions; they usually hold between 130 and 200 feet of hose that can be laid out on the go or pulled out.