Providing updated equipment for small departments will always be a challenge for fire chiefs. While an extremely limited budget requires constant effort to spend every dollar wisely, a FEMA grant makes life easier and safer for rural firefighters across the nation. Continued support of the grant program will only improve fire protection services in those communities fortunate enough to receive these grants.

Although many in the fire service only see the benefit of receiving a grant to buy a single piece of expensive equipment, don't forget the small departments that survive day to day without all the little extras that make doing the job easier. This is a story of a small department operating on a limited budget and how it used FEMA grants to improve firefighter safety and fireground operations.

Organized in 1938, the Palmer Lake Volunteer Fire Department sits in the foothills of the Front Range of Colorado's Rocky Mountains, just north of Colorado Springs. Palmer Lake is a small community of 2,200 trying to maintain its rural roots in an area that is becoming increasingly suburban.

The all-volunteer department has 20 members and is led by Chief Julie Lokken, a 13-year veteran of the department.The department responds to 220 emergencies annually and is a member of an automatic aid organization with six other fire protection districts. Department units also are assigned on structure and wildland fires in a large surrounding geographical area.

The department maintains a Class A pumper, a Colorado State Forest Service tender on loan to the department, a brush truck purchased almost entirely with grant funds and a medical quick-response vehicle. The firehouse dates back to 1938 and provides minimal room for apparatus and meetings. A second brush unit is housed inside in the same room as the kitchen and meeting area.

The department continues to operate with an enthusiastic group of firefighters who don't let their lack of modern facilities deter their continuing efforts to stay current with modern firefighting technology. Limited daytime staffing, as is common in many smaller communities, requires that the engine be as efficient as possible when responding with a minimum number of crew members.

Three for three

Over the years, limited funding has restricted the ability of the department to have the type of equipment that is normally found in many communities. In 2001, the department purchased a 1,250gpm American LaFrance Metropolitan pumper with a 1,000-gallon water tank. The rig was equipped with the bare minimum equipment to provide adequate fire protection.

Through Lokken's efforts, however, the department has received three FEMA FIRE Act Grants to improve service. The first grant allowed the department to purchase new PPE and SCBA for the members, and a second grant was used for training material and a slip-on unit for the brush truck. The 2004 grant was earmarked to upgrade fire equipment for the department. Her efforts place Lokken in an exclusive group of chiefs: She is three for three in the FEMA grant program.

Lokken decided that the pumper had to accomplish the mission safely with the least amount of problems for responding firefighters. Large fires requiring more than one attack line are rare, and drivers do not get much experience in pump operations. Making the pumper easier to operate and increasing the initial fire attack flows were two main objectives.

After some research and input from a local seminar by noted fire service expert Capt. Dave Fornell, the chief set out to make her pumper one of the most efficient in the system. Many of you will look at some of the upgrades and consider them something you have had on your rigs for decades. But remember that this department had not had a reliable, first-line pumper for many years. Operating on limited funds makes things that you would normally find on a rig something special to the Palmer Lake Fire Department.

Water-related upgrades

Although Palmer Lake has fire hydrants, the pumper responds to many areas where portable tank operations are required. The automatic aid group is well-versed in portable tank operations, and responding pumpers must be able to take a tactical position as a drafting or attack unit when needed. With the region suffering from a long-term drought, tenders are even dispatched to areas with hydrants to provide backup water capabilities.

A low-level strainer with a jet siphon and a new snap-together portable tank were purchased, as was an additional in-line jet siphon for transferring water from tank to tank. A new tank liner was purchased for the portable tank on the tender that still had its original canvas liner from more than 25 years ago.

One of the challenges of a small department is providing for adequate and safe fire stream operations. Several member departments of the automatic aid group have made efforts to increase fire flow and have tried to standardize attack line capability.

The first items needed to increase flows were 1ⁱ-inch hose to replace the 1 -inch hose currently on the rig. To make the pump operator's job easier, the department purchased solid-bore and fog nozzles with the same flow and pressure ratings. An Akron Assault low-pressure fog nozzle, rated at 150gpm at 50psi, and Elkhart ^m-inch solid-bore tips, which flow 160gpm at 50psi, were placed on the two preconnected 1ⁱ-inch lines.

To allow for stretches longer than the preconnect's length, a bulk hose load of 2 -inch hose was added. The rear hose bed now has a split load of 3-inch supply line and a bulk bed with 600 feet of 2 -inch attack line, finished with a leader line of 100 feet of 1ⁱ-inch hose. A ^m-inch solid-bore nozzle is attached to the 1ⁱ-inch hose to match the flow from the preconnects. The 2 -inch and the 1ⁱ-inch lines are connected by a 2 -inch ball shutoff with a 1 -inch solid bore tip. The big tip will flow 265gpm at 50psi, providing a line with heavy knockdown capability. This bulk load allows a crew either to lead out a small attack line with the built in capability for a large attack line, or to simply disconnect the small line if the heavy flow is initially required.

Spare nozzles also were purchased to provide for those rare occasions when several large lines would be needed. The department purchased two 2 -inch shutoffs with 1 -inch solid-bore tips. These nozzles flow at the same pressure as all other primary nozzles on the truck, so figuring the correct operating pressures is easy and consistent. Elkhart stream shapers were also placed on each solid-bore tip.

When the pumper was purchased, the department couldn't afford to buy any type of intake control valve. During continuing training efforts to place engines at hydrants for more effective flows using reverse lays, the department realized this problem needed to be corrected. Previously the department had been able to use only 3-inch hose at a hydrant, thus significantly limiting the water flow into the pump. The department decided to add a 5-inch intake relief valve and 50 feet of 5-inch hose for hydrant hook-ups. The 5-inch hose is mounted on the right side running board. Because of the extremely close clearance when backing the rig into quarters, the hose can't be preconnected, and even the mirrors must be folded to get the pumper inside the station.

Other purchases

There was some other minor equipment purchased to make fireground operations easier.

For example, the department transfers to another district on some alarms, and that district has a response area with the Colorado Springs Fire Department. Hydrants in Colorado Springs don't have NST steamer connections, so an adapter was added in case the company is transferred and has a subsequent call to assist the Colorado Springs Fire Department.

Other adapters to connect to cisterns of various sizes are also available on the engine. Adapters to pump to a neighboring district's 5-inch hose were mounted on the pump panel, and a hose clamp that was on the department's first rig, purchased in 1938, was replaced. A colored set of double couplings, which matches the department's accountability tag color, is now used to interconnect the 3-inch split supply load.

The department also purchased a Partner K-12 saw, the first gasoline-powered saw the department has ever owned. Ventilation or forcible tasks that used to wait for the arrival of other companies can now be done as soon as the engine arrives on scene. The department's only extrication tool was air-powered and required several spare SCBA bottles to use effectively. Because the Palmer Lake Fire Department doesn't have easy access for refilling air bottles, an upgrade was needed.

The department decided on a TNT Rescue tool and power unit. This brand matched the nearest mutual aid company's extrication system, so if both departments are on the same accident scene, the tools are interchangeable and everyone is familiar with their operation. A combination tool that meets NFPA 1936 as both a cutter and a spreader was purchased. Now that extra SCBA bottles don't have to be carried to power the old extrication tool, more cribbing was added to the rig.

With the addition of all the new equipment, the Palmer Lake Fire Department has increased its ability to flow more effective fire streams and to hook up to every fire system in the automatic aid area. Although the parts look small, the change in efficiency is significant and will serve the department and its members for years to come.

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A 35-year veteran of the federal fire service, James Rackl has since retired and is now a firefighter with the Donald Wescott Fire Protection District in Colorado Springs, Colo.