The fire service can be a complicated world. The different training offerings, apparatus, incident scenarios and equipment can be overwhelming for some. Tractor Drawn Aerial (TDA) is a brand that helps mitigate the complexity of the fire service in one focused area: tractor-drawn aerials.
Steve Crothers of the Seattle Fire Department, began TDA training 18 years ago and never looked back. Due to the uniqueness in its design and function, TDAs aren’t the most common fire apparatus across the nation. However, Crothers saw an opportunity that no one had taken advantage of yet, a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about TDAs.
“I wanted to build a place that we could talk, specifically, about the very unique aspects of this apparatus, because it's different than any other fire apparatus,” said Crothers.
In 2014, Crothers built the site TractorDrawnAerial.com to help those who wanted to become more informed or were interested in TDAs. Four years later, he created an Instagram account that has over 66,000 followers, and the brand’s Facebook has over 92,000 followers.
“In our department, we've always had tillers in the downtown core of the city," Carothers told Firehouse. "Our department made the decision to transition all our straight frame rear mounts that were outside the downtown core into TDAs. Up until that point, we didn't have a formalized program. I was always interested in building one for our department."
There still isn’t a standard on how to drive tillers today, but Crothers has been interested in why the drivers do what they do, why the tiller operator does what they do and would always hear different answers to those procedures when discussing. He wanted to bring everything together and build consistency.
"Departments always looked at a TDA as a big city truck. They would never get it. Now, most departments buying TDAs for the first time are smaller jurisdictions. When they decide to, then they need to find training. When you looked on the internet, our company was really the only one out there," said Crothers.
There was a good amount of success in the beginning, but then Raleigh, NC, Fire Department had one of their TDAs rollover in 2009. The incident was caught on video, bringing more attention to the apparatus being a total loss and the details around the incident.
“We contacted Raleigh, because we wanted to understand how and why the accident happened, apply our principles, and see if our principles existed, would the accident occur? We started a cool relationship with them, and it eventually led to them wanting to know what we did in Seattle,” said Crothers.
Crothers’ department and Raleigh connected to dig deeper into the cause, and how to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. A partnership was formed between the two resulting in a safety video with the four members that were involved in the accident in hopes of preventing this type of accident from occurring in the future.
This is something that Crothers loves to do. It is golf. It’s his passion. With his retirement around the corner, there will be more time to invest in the site and brand. There aren’t any grand plans set in stone, but he recognizes that more free time will allow him to do things he hasn’t been able to do.
“Every time I train, I learn something new. Every time we train departments, I learn something new. I've really enjoyed impacting the fire service the way I've been able to with the type of training we provide,” said Crothers.
Ryan Baker
Ryan Baker is a writer and associate editor with prior experiences in online and print production. Ryan is an associate editor for T&D World and Firehouse, while he is going to graduate school in pursuit of a master's degree in sciences of communication at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He recently completed a year of teaching Intro to Public Speaking at UW-Whitewater, as part of his graduate program. Ryan acquired his bachelor's degree in journalism in 2023 from UW-Whitewater, and operates currently out of Minneapolis, MN. Baker, also writes freelances for the Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) in his free time, while also umpiring baseball for various ages across the Twin Cities Metro Area.
