Wilbur Light Tower Problem

[Tom014]

Problem with Will-Burt Nightscan Light Tower
We're wondering if anyone else has had an incident similar to our unfortunate situation.

We were responding to a call with our pumper which is equipped with a Will-Burt Nightscan Light Tower. While en route, the light tower decided that it should raise itself into position. Shortly after this we came to an intersection with a traffic signal. We lost the head of the light tower, took down two traffic lights and damaged the remainder of the light tower beyond repair. Fortunately, no one was injured and the only damage was to the traffic signals and our apparatus (some parts fell into the cooling area for the hydraulic generator and took out the cooling fan).

The Saulsbury sales/service rep responded immediately. He checked and found that this is not the first time this has happened to someone.

If you have had an incident with a light tower raising by itself please let us know. Our insurance company is very interested.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Lt. Tom Remmert
Westmere Fire Dept.
1741 Western Ave.
Albany, NY 12203
(518) 456-5200
tremmert@westmerefd.org

[nmfire]

HAHAHAHAHAHA... Sorry, that is rather humorous as long as no one got hurt...

I would look for crappy water logged connections, or cheap-o switches and relays that might have given up. It could be internal on the light tower or it could be a problem with the wiring of the truck itself. You might want to look into some kind of interlock that will disable power to it if the parking brake is turned off.

[Halligan84]

Was it a night scan? We had some problems with it not coming down (brand new truck) While checking it in the station it suddenly raised up and hit the ceiling, damaging the base and the ceiling. Going to factory in a week or two to be checked.

[Tom014]

Thanks to nfmire and Halligan84 for your replies. We heard from our sales rep that this happened somewhere else in New England. Also, one of our neighboring departments had their Nightscan tower go up all by itself.

When the new one is installed, they are going to wire it to the parking brake safety so there will be no power to the light tower unless the brake is set.

The factory informed us "that can't happen."

We would still appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced this or knows of anyone else who has experienced this.

Once we knew no one was injured, we also saw some humor in it. We were going through the largest shopping mall in the area when it happened. Two maintenance people were working on the roof and saw the whole thing. "We never saw a fire truck respond like that" was their comment. Fortunately, it was about 10:10 AM and there was very little traffic or onlookers.

[CaptainHammer]

high powered fog lights on a tower ?

[Citadel]

Naw, he just hit the high beam switch and the tower is wired to it. Can't think of anyother reason.

[nmfire]

Originally posted by Tom014


The factory informed us "that can't happen."

I love when they do that. It's like, "HELLO! Would we be having this conversation if 'that can't happen'?"

[vindicator]

I have heard of water doing this. It gets inside and causes a short.

[TCFD12]

I'm interested to know what problems, if any are found with your light tower. My department has (5) Wil-Burts in service and I am curious to know whether we need to have them checked for some condition that may have caused this.

Please keep us posted.

Thanks

[Tom014]

If we find out what caused the problem, I'll be sure to post it here. The remains of the light tower are still in our station. I'm told there is a separate air pump that is used to raise the tower. I don't know if the pump operates from the 120/240 AC supply or if it operates from the 12V vehicle supply. The AMPS generator on that particular pumper runs all the time (not my decision). We have spoken to the sales rep from Saulsbury about connecting something to the parking brake so the new tower won't do the same thing. We have a very similar Will-Burt night scan on our Rescue truck, but that truck only runs the generator when it's needed, so I don't know if we need to put some type of safety on that one.

Thanks again for the responses.

Tom Remmert
Westmere FD
Albany, NY

[Fire26]

My department has not had any problems (that I know of) but the town of Norwood, NJ had bought a truck and they had the same problem. It was one of many problems they had with the truck. It was so bad it made the newspaper here. Good luck with you problem.