During the past few years, we have had the pleasure of meeting with many departments to further discuss some of these purchasing principles and practices as well as presenting these concepts at both Firehouse World in San Diego and Firehouse Expo in Baltimore. Over the past few months, we have met with some departments that would cause us to take pause and wonder if our message is really getting across to fire departments. Consider these two recent cases:
Case 1 - A fire department in the western United States operates three stations in a semi-rural area with some hydrant protection. In one station's first-due area are several large homes with private driveways that cannot accommodate the department's present Class A pumper and 2,500-gallon commercial chassis tanker-pumper. The department plans to purchase a small mini-pumper with a two-person cab, 500-gpm pump and compressed-air foam system (CAFS) to protect these properties. It wants to back this unit up with a custom-chassis 3,500-gallon tanker pumper that would have a 1,750-gpm top-mount pump enclosed in the cab. The purpose of this unit would be to nurse the mini-pumper and carry additional personnel to the scene.
When we inquired if the department was going to adapt its standard operating guidelines (SOGs) to allow for an initial response of two personnel on the attack unit, the committee hadn't thought about that. Then we inquired as to the practical size of a 3,500-gallon pumper-tanker with an enclosed top-mount pump, the response was something like, "We can handle a 38-foot-long truck"! We left the meeting feeling like we had both failed in our mission to give good information to prospective new apparatus buyers.
Case 2 - A department in the South was experiencing a rapid growth of large, mansion-style homes and the members felt that they needed a ladder truck quint to adequately protect these properties. The department did not presently operate a ladder company, although its pumpers each carried a 35-foot ground ladder. The current thinking of the department was to acquire a short-wheelbase quint equipped with a 75-foot rear-mount ladder, 2,000-gpm pump, 500-gallon water tank with a ground ladder complement of a 14-foot roof ladder and a single 24-foot extension ladder. Considering that the department already owned two 35-foot extension ladders, the members did not see the need to purchase any more long ground ladders, as the aerial ladder would fill this requirement.
Once again, we inquired if the department had attempted to bring in a similar piece of apparatus into the community to see if it would be able to get into the areas that needed ladder company service. Unfortunately, the answer was no. One manufacturer brought in a demonstrator quint and proceeded to set it up on the ramp of the firehouse. While this allowed all of the members of the fire department to view the unit, it did little to support their decision to purchase a $550,000 piece of equipment to protect buildings other than the firehouse!
In consideration of these two case studies and many others, we offer this "We Interrupt This Broadcast" article as a "back-to-basics" approach to your fire apparatus design and specification process. It is appropriate for us to re-visit some of the concepts that were covered in the first few articles of "The Apparatus Architect" series to insure that we are all on the same page before we proceed further into the area of aerial and ladder truck design.
"Define the Job"
One of the first tasks for the truck committee is to "define the job" for the new piece of apparatus. This step requires the fire department to review and analyze your first-due area, fire-flow requirements, staffing levels, department SOPs and SOGs as well as looking at past incidents to determine exactly what your fire department needs to improve its efficiency and safety on the fireground.
Get help! If you read any apparatus article in any trade journal, all the experts are saying the same thing: hire an apparatus consult, an apparatus architect or whatever you want to call it, but the bottom line is get some outside help! Do not rely on the sales representative; this person may have been selling cars last week. Many apparatus sales reps have never been firefighters, so how much help would they really be? Why are most sales reps selling fire trucks? To make $$$. Although there are some very good, knowledgeable, honest and hard-working fire apparatus sales reps, ask yourself: how many fire departments around yours have purchased a fire truck within the last five years and absolutely hate it? Answer: probably almost all of them. But why? It is a combination of many factors. The sales reps may not have known what they were doing. The truck committee members may have not known what they were doing, were taken advantage of or just settled for the low bid.
Fire apparatus purchasing is the original pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later proposition. Buy low bid now and you may end up spending twice the amount of money that you allegedly saved in repairs to just keep the vehicle in service for the first five years. We have seen departments that have saved $20,000 on the original bid only to have to have the apparatus rehabbed at a cost of $140,000 by the end of the fifth year. How many low-bid trucks never make the 20-year life expectancy that the fire department paid for and was counting on?
Fire trucks have become very complex and the industry is very technologically overwhelming. How is your department going to get a fair shake and do a good job if you buy a new pumper once every 10 years or it has been 30 years since you purchased your last ladder truck? Perhaps your department is the apparatus sales rep's dream come true - a first-time aerial ladder purchaser that has $900,000 just burning a hole in its pocket and cannot wait to jump into the tower ladder business. It is ironic that a fire department putting on a $500,000 fire station addition would not think of breaking ground or making a move without hiring the services of an architect are the same people that do not give it a second thought as they try to purchase an $800,000 tower ladder with no help at all. Get help!
In Part 1 of the series, we detailed one of the purchasing pitfalls for apparatus committees - to specify a piece of apparatus that is identical to that of a neighboring department, under the assumption that "if it works for them, it will work for us." In any event, it is usually a good idea to travel around and visit departments that have purchased apparatus similar to what you may be considering, in order to gather technical information from them, review their history of the apparatus, particularly the maintenance history, and to see for yourself if your conceptual ideas for the design may actually work out. Conversely, if you cannot find anything close to what you are looking for within the next three states, then maybe it's time for a quick sanity check.
Apparatus manufactures are in business to build quality fire trucks and in most cases have at least some models that are designed to meet your needs. There are many areas of the county where apparatus are built to meet the local needs of departments based upon climatic conditions, type of fire attack tactics and many other factors. Did you ever notice the difference between engine company designs for a unit in Minnesota vs. one in Maryland? The chassis, pump enclosures and hose bodies are dramatically different, yet they are still effective in their respective areas.
When developing your initial design for the apparatus, be careful not stray too far from the centerline of the road. If your local apparatus representative makes a statement like "we have never built that before," he may be telling you more than that your request was unique and unusual! Buy from quality manufacturers that have a long and successful history of customer satisfaction. You do not want to buy the prototype of any manufactures apparatus. You do not want to be first; you do not want to buy one of the first dozen of anyone's anything. Make sure the bugs are worked out. Don't let your department be the guinea pig.
Innovation and unique designs are fine, so long as they can be properly engineered and built and make sense. Don't ask for unusual or one-of-a-kind equipment just to be different. After safety and tactical concerns are met, we want to be as cost effective as practical with the overall design of the apparatus.
Before your apparatus committee begins to schedule meetings with manufacturers' representatives, you must get some of your thoughts down on paper. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1901 Automotive Fire Apparatus Standard is a must-have for any fire department that will be buying, selling or rehabbing fire apparatus. The latest revised addition of 1901 should be available in the fall. The NFPA 1901 Automotive Fire Apparatus Standard has an excellent outline for a specification in the appendix. Completing this outline will insure the committee that you have not overlooked any of the critical factors regarding the design of the new unit.
Another concept is to develop a "bullet-item list" for all of the major areas of the apparatus, such as required overall length, wheelbase, desired engine and drive train components, pump and tank size, tool, hose and equipment lists, and so forth. This information should be shared with everyone on the apparatus committee and ideally should be sent out to the manufacturers' representatives before they meet with the committee.
When sending this information out to the vendors, request that representatives review your department's needs based upon the outline and come prepared to present a preliminary specification and blueprint showing the various aspects of the apparatus. Rather than making the initial meeting an information-gathering session for the manufacturer, you can conduct a working session to let the committee review the information provided and obtain needed technical input and comments from each manufacturer.
Remember to keep all of this information on file and with the input provided from the manufacturers you can begin to refine your specifications for the new apparatus. In addition, ask each vendor to provide you with detailed specifications and blueprints of similar apparatus or units that you may have looked at from other departments. This information can be an invaluable resource when completing the initial draft of your specifications.
Do not be surprised, however, if you have a fleet from "Brand X" and are buying a new apparatus based on a "Brand X" spec from which other vendors may tend to shy away. It takes many hours for a sales rep to develop fire apparatus specifications. Most apparatus sales reps work on commission and they do not receive any payment of those commissions until the vehicles are at least delivered and in some cases paid for. So from a sales rep's perspective time is money and why would you waste time on customers who already have their minds made up to buy someone else's product?
Fire apparatus design has evolved a lot over the past decade, but the procedures for analyzing the needs of your community and how they impact your apparatus requirements have not. Following the concepts presented in "The Apparatus Architect" series will insure that the truck committee will be touching all of the bases to properly design and build your next new rig.
In the next installment of "The Apparatus Architect" we will return to our discussion on the various types of aerial ladder apparatus.
Tom Shand is a firefighter with the Newton-Abbott Volunteer Fire Department in the Town of Hamburg, NY, and a senior instructor at the Onondaga County Community College Public Safety Training Center. He is employed by American LaFrance and is assigned to the Hamburg Facility in the apparatus sales department. Michael Wilbur, a Firehouse® contributing editor, is a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department, assigned to Ladder Company 27 in the Bronx, and has served for the past five years on the FDNY Apparatus Purchasing Committee. He has consulted on a variety of apparatus related issues throughout the country. For further information access his new website at www.emergencyvehicleresponse.com.
