Every organization depends on its equipment, but none more than fire departments, where innovation often makes the difference between a rescue and tragedy. Fire-Rescue International, the annual conference and trade show of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, is where 16,000 leaders from emergency services organizations around the world come to see what’s new.

Veterans of the exhibit hall floor have learned to wear their running shoes. The smartest ones form teams to divide and conquer this Disneyland of more than 625 vendor displays spread across more than half a million square feet. We took a similar approach this year, inviting members from the IAFC’s Apparatus Maintenance Section to assess new products displayed at this year’s show at the Ernest P. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. The Apparatus Maintenance Section meets every year in a two-day preconference IAFC workshop to hear about what’s new in the world of apparatus manufacturing and standards, fleet specification and maintenance. Two of the section’s board members offered their time and comments on new products in the exhibit hall.

Don Henry, chair of the AMS, is a faculty member at Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alberta, Canada, teaching Automotive Service Technician and Heavy Equipment Technician programs. Partnering his college with fire etc., he codeveloped Canada’s only post-secondary level Fire Apparatus Maintenance program. Henry has written many articles on fire apparatus and has completed a textbook on apparatus maintenance. A past president of the National Association of Emergency Vehicle Technicians, he is a principal member of the proposal committee for NFPA 1071, Standard for Professional Qualifications for EVTs.

John Stacey, chief of the Bellevue (Neb.) Volunteer Fire & Rescue, is a board member of the AMS and chairs the NFPA fire hose committee, which develops proposals for NFPA standards 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965, documents that cover nozzles, couplings, appliances and hose. Stacey has also authored many articles in fire apparatus maintenance in his 14 years as fire chief.

Needless to say, this team is not easily impressed by gadgets and hype but truly appreciative of apparatus and equipment innovations that increase safety for firefighters and don’t waste a fire department’s limited resources. New ideas that minimize downtime “in the shop” for maintenance get their attention. They deemed five products worthy of note.

Back Saver

Hydraulic ladder racks have saved many firefighters backs, but the overhead ladder gantry by Pierce takes the innovation a step further, delivering ladders with the touch-button ease to waist level at the rear of the apparatus -- where firefighters have more room and are generally safer from moving traffic -- rather than on the side.

The ladder gantry system offers a variety of mounting configurations, from 96 inches to 120 inches off the ground. As ladders move off the truck, they tilt down to waste-height, from 36 inches to 42-inches off the ground, making it easy for firefighters to grab and go.

Pierce offers the system in multiple configurations for storage of 14-foot and 24-foot two-section duo safety ladders, two 10-foot pike poles and a 10-foot folding ladder. The system holds the bottom ladder in place while the single (top) ladder is being removed. LED warning lights are mounted on the rack to alert drivers. Ladder locks prevent bounce and movement on the road.

The unit shown at FRI combined the Ladder Gantry with the Pack Mule, which lowers the hosebed to waist level. The combined system made for a very ergonomic, firefighter-friendly firetruck.

The price tag for the system wasn’t a stretch either, the technicians said. “I think it’s an inexpensive enough innovation that people could afford it,” Stacey said.

For more information on the Ladder Gantry and Pack Mule, talk to your local Pierce representative or see www.piercemfg.com.

The ‘5th Man’

To produce the Strong Arm, Ferrara partnered with the Gradall, a company that has been making telescoping hydraulic booms, aerial work platforms and telehandlers for the excavation industry for 50 years. Mounted on Ferrara’s Inferno chassis is a 47-foot, multiple-section boom made by Gradall that can reach up, swing left or right and rotate up to 110 degrees to position the nozzle against even the steepest roof slopes. The boom tilts 220 degrees and provides full freedom of movement even in limited overhead space, according to Ferrara.

At the boom’s tip is the most interesting new feature, a 1,100-pound hardened-steel tip that can penetrate most construction materials -- up to 6 inches of solid concrete -- to ventilate the structure and deliver up to 1,500gpm of water. Ferrara calls it “the 5th Man.” It can shower a fire with a 50-foot water curtain made by 52 individual jet nozzles. The nozzle can also deliver foam or dry chemicals.

The Strong Arm certainly reduces the need to put firefighters in harm’s way to ventilate fires or to enter vacant structures. Our panelists said the boom looked “robust and mechanically sound” and reeled off many kinds of incidents where the Strong Arm would be a better alternative than sending in firefighters -- vacant warehouse fires, meth-lab fires, shipping and railway “mystery” fires where you don’t know what’s inside that smoking container.

Stacey recalled a fire in a rental facility a few weeks earlier where it would have been handy. The fire was in a in an 80-foot-by-150-foot steel building with concrete fascia. The building was stuffed full of full of thousands of folding tables, vinyl chairs, curtains, balloons, oxygen tanks, acetylene, etc. As firefighters began their attack, the metal in the building structure quickly started expanding and concrete started falling. “You could see it was going to come down,” said Stacey. “We pulled everybody out and it became a defensive attack. We couldn’t get on the roof because it was too soft, too hot.”

If his department had the Strong Arm, Stacey said, “We could poke a hole in the roof, deluge that area; take it out, go through the wall, go through the other side of the roof…. It would have made that fire extinguishable in an hour and a half.”

The fire service has had piercing nozzles for a hundred years, but nothing like this, said our panelists. “We use piercing nozzles all the time. Make them bigger? Who’d have thought? Very innovative. When they put this out there, it made me stop and take a breath,” Stacey said.

For more information about The Strong Arm, visit www.strongarmfirefighting.com.

A Better Aerial

A new aerial introduced by Crimson Fire had several innovative features. Crimson boasts its new design will “completely redefine the role the aerial can play in the field.” But the feature that caught our panel’s attention was a new patent-pending roller assembly system designed to smooth ladder extension and retraction over conventional slide pads and grease systems and eliminate the need to grease ladder rails.

“They have really reduced the level of maintenance that’s going to be required on aerials,” said Henry. “Aerials are kind of a pain. You’re always greasing them or you’re aligning them; they’re maintenance intensive. These new innovative roller-sliders will reduce the amount of lubricant and the amount of wasted grease dripping off aerials.”

Other features of the new Crimson Fire aerial include:

· A “X-style” outrigger system that will level the apparatus on slopes of up to 15 degrees and enable set up on severe terrain. · A new ladder-lift cradle design that positions the ladder close to the ground, making it easier to change out equipment at the ladder tip, providing more standing room and better visibility to the turntable operator and enabling the ladder to operate at 10 degrees below horizontal for river rescue and other low-angle rescue operations. · An automatic retractable waterway controlled electronically entirely from the control panel -- without pins or tools -- reducing maintenance and eliminating the need to crawl to the end of the ladder. · Crimson’s “Vibra Torq” mounting system, which reduces stress on the aerial cradle and ladder structures during travel and rest, the company says.

For more information on the new Crimson Fire aerial, see www.crimson-fire.com.

A Simple Solution

Large-diameter hose is one of the heaviest pieces of equipment that firefighters must work with routinely. Transporting and reloading LDH after a fire is the source of many back injuries. A single 100-foot section of five-inch hose can weigh 135 pounds -- even more when wet.

After injuring his back a couple of times lifting 5-inch hose three years ago, firefighter Javier Fernandez of Mukwonago, Wis., decided there had to be a better way. Fernandez designed the Rollnrack, a portable heavy-duty stainless steel cart that enables firefighters to scoop up a roll of hose of various diameters (adjustable from 1 ½-inch to 6-inch) and easily roll it on wheels, handtruck-style, wherever they need it. To reload hose after a fire, the firefighter simply sets the adjustable cart for the hose diameter, rolls it aboard, flips the coupling over a top bar and rolls the cart to the truck. Back at the truck, a toe-brake locks the cart in place, and hose feeds easily from the cart into the hose bed. A job that usually takes four firefighters can be done with two using this system – with much less time and effort.

The Rollnrack folds down for stowage in truck compartments and comes with soft or pneumatic tires.

“Very good design for the firefighter. It’s something that makes his job easier and safer,” said Stacey. “It looks like the guy really put his heart into it. He wanted to make it right.”

For more information on the Web, see www.rollnrack.com.

Nifty Nozzle

At the end of the day, most fires are put out by firefighters squirting water from a hose. Our panel’s choice from the array of nozzles displayed at FRI was the Single Shutoff Saberjet made by Akron Brass. One three-position handle enables firefighters to easily change the stream from solid bore to fog and to shutoff positions. The nozzle operates efficiently at pressures from 50psi to 100psi, according to Akron. A versatile nozzle with multiple applications, it has compressed-air foam capability, a 10-year warranty and is NFPA 1964-compliant.

“I was very impressed. It worked well. The action on the fog is very easy, very smooth,” said Stacey.

For more information on the Saberjet, see www.akronbrass.com.