Air and Light Trucks?

[bmiller59]

Greetings all,

I have been tasked with researching the purchase of an Air and Light Truck. Locally we have a SVI rep but I would like to get information from other manufacturers. Any suggestions on who makes a decent vehicle? Also I am a big fan of Bauer compressor blocks so they need to provide that. Any advice from you good folks would be appreciated.
I have been trying to convince the Chiefs that a A/L trailer will suffice our needs at a much lower cost. We'll see.

Thanks in advance, Bill
North Metro Fire, Colorado

[LaFireEducator]

Look the the Pheoniz, AZ FD website. They have a very well setup vehicle, which may or may not fit your needs.
If all you are looking for is air/light, a trailer sounds like the perfect way to go though.

[EastKyFF]

I would agree with the trailer concept unless your call volume is pretty high or if the thing will be regionalized for lots of road time.

There are lots of these outfits advertising on Firehouse.com. Have fun!

[steverfd]

We used some homeland security money to purchase a mobile cascade system. We went with a skid mount unit and placing in the rear of our 1 ton pickup we pull our haz mat trailer with, covered with a campershell with a rear hatchback.



Comes complete with 6 6000 psi cylinders, powder coated frame, lit control panel, NFPA compliant boom box for fills. All fills can be done while standing on ground, will never have to get up in the truck.

It shipped out today, should have it here on tuesday. 13 k I think was total cost.

We went this route due to not having to drag another trailer around, we will always have the mobile cascade on all haz mat scenes. Total weight is like 1700 lbs.


Steve

[cozmosis]

Thanks to a $139k FIRE Act grant, we just took delivery of a Scott Liberty II air/light trailer. Ours is tandem axle, carries four ASME storage cylinders, a light tower with four 500 watt lights, a 7.2KW generator and high-pressure hose line. The cascade system will fill two of our new 30-minute 4500 psi bottles in 1:17.

http://www.scotthealthsafety.com/liberty2.htm

We've had it less than a week and it's yet to see action... but so far, it appears that we made the right choice for our department. We're a combination department and we don't have the staffing or call volume to support a dedicated air/light truck.

[mglax13]

My department has the same trailer as cozmosis has only with a single axle. We've had it for a little over a year now. So far, it has suited us well. We run about 4-5 major house fires a year and we've never had a bottle issue. The trailer has never failed us. The only problem we've ever had is one day we noticed a slight hissing coming from a tank, turned out it was a loose connection and that was fixed in seconds. The great part about the trailer is that unlike a cascade system, the bottles will never run out b\c there is a compressor on board the trailer so the air is endless. Lets us train alot with the SCBA's using air without worrying about refilling our cascade system. Another go thing is that it can either operate on power from the diesel engine, or from house power using a big power cord.

[stillPSFB]

Down here they tend to seperate the two functions, because if you require lighting at a big fire eg factory, warehouse etc, it could mean that your truck is close enough for the air intake for your compressor to be sucking smoke in when it's filling.

Instead we have various salvage trucks with lighting systems, and air is provided by the Fart Bus (well that's what it's universally known as anyway - some wag decided that it should be called the Firefighter Air Response Truck - hence FART)

[SafetyPro]

There are our three local Air Utility Units that respond mutual aid in the Verdugo system.

Glendale AU 28
South Pasadena AU 81
Arcadia A&L 105

Most of these carry portable lights rather than fixed lights, so they can be staged further away from the incident.