Tradition can be a sacred thing, but most traditions have become worn out and are dragged on and on for tradition's sake alone. Moreover, I doubt that any trade or vocation has more traditions than the fire service has.

One tradition that deserves our attention is promoting and preserving two of the basic units in the American fire service: the pumper and the ladder truck. These two units have, after a fashion, survived the span of decades and, although my eyes are aged and cataractous, I can still see this combination working.

At this point we lose a number of readers, for their duty is carried out in communities of a size not requiring the service of a ladder truck. They get along with a pumper, and often their secondary application is to carry water with the use of tankers. These towns, villages and hamlets proceed with a basic supply of truck tools, 24-foot extension ladders and 14-foot roof ladders. A 35-foot extension is rarely available, despite the occasional need for one.

One community that was growing and in need of additional ladder capability was Hamlin, N.Y. This fire department solved the problem by designing a rescue truck to carry ladders that were otherwise lacking. When this was combined with what they carried on their pumpers, they became ladder solvent.

Once upon a time

I won't get into the technicalities of when a fire district gets to the size that a ladder truck is warranted. There were the days, however, when mid-range communities solved the ladder problem with what was called a city service truck, a straight-framed vehicle with a long wheel base that could accommodate the wall ladders of the time. These carried a full complement of truck company tools as well as salvage gear. When I entered the Dunkirk Fire Department in 1946, we had a 1923 Ahrens-Fox city service truck, and it was great to work off of. (We switched to an aerial ladder truck in the late ’40s.)

Somewhere in the passage of time, a pump, water tank, hose body and booster reel were put on the city service truck, which meant that it possessed the qualities of a triple combination pumper. This bumped its status up to four combinations on a single frame, so it took on the term “quad.” Insurance rating organizations recognized that a single unit couldn't do both jobs, because in those days the pump was usually at the source, while the ladder truck was at the fire. Accordingly, the quad was graded at half credit as a pumper and full credit as a ladder truck, or the other way around.

In the mid-'30s, the hydraulic metal aerial ladder came into service, and since it could be put on a straight-frame chassis, it was inviting to smaller communities. That made the city service rig something of the past and did the quad no favors, either.

Of course, all this eventually gave birth to the quint, which, in addition to the quad configuration, also had an aerial ladder. Although these units have been with us for some decades, they didn't become popular until the mid-1970s, when the diesel engine gave enough power to run both pumps: volume and hydraulic. The ’80s saw them flourish, and they continue to do so as I write.

In the meantime, how did the ladder truck's companion, the pumper, develop? Basically it got bigger and more powerful, safer and more complicated. Pumpers today carry more water, more hose and more firefighters, and the volume of water they can pump is beyond belief to our brethren of times past who did what we do.

As the years have flown by, both units have been equipped to handle assignments that society and modern technology have thrust on us. Equipment for medical response, hazmat incidents and vehicle entrapment has to be ready for mobile response. In addition, SCBA has demanded more storage for both the basic units and spare tanks.

So we see the pumper also increased in all dimensions, plus its variety of calls or missions has changed, mostly for reasons of economy. Beside the basic vehicle combinations of pumper tanker, we have the rescue pumper, pumper ambulance and hazmat pumper.

On the other hand, we've seen how the ladder truck has grown to accommodate additional combinations. Its mission now consists of responding to a series of assignments or being available to respond as a pumper when that need arises.

A while ago, the Dunkirk FD got rid of its American LaFrance aerial ladder truck and replaced it with a new such device. It's a great rig, but for my money it came in short on ground ladders and long on storage compartments. This shows that there's a limit to how much you can swell these units before you have to cut back on a traditional commodity.

Everything old is new again

The conclusion is that both pumpers and ladder trucks are outsized, heavier, more capable and more expensive. But what about the basic mission, firefighting? True, this activity has seen its changes, but it still requires the same devices it did 100 years ago: the hose line, the pike pole, the ax and the ladder.

Further, you still have to lay and advance hose lines, do forcible entry, raise ladders and open roofs. Along the way it's search and rescue, and if you still have hands, you throw tarps and do salvage work. Back to the same old story.

Since World War II, much of the country's domestic construction has been single-story dwellings with attached garages. Who hasn't seen them by the thousand? For these you don't need much in the way of ladders, but when they burn, they deserve more than a hose line stuck through a window while enough water flows out the front door to accommodate Noah and his ark.

Also, in the Northeast and Midwest at least, thousands of vintage dwellings, commercial structures and industrial complexes have survived the ravages of time and are still occupied. They require basic firefighting tactics for survival. So we have to be able to fight fire overall in a manner that will suit the structural dictates of both ends of our building frame.

At the same time, we have to be cognizant of the funds available to cover our apparatus needs. Municipal leaders often don't have both the courage and the funds to give us all we'd like to fill out our fleet. We also need to face the fact that small communities can't raise a crew to staff their units during daytime hours.

Many factors go into why our firefighting is so varied and so many concepts have arisen in a few decades. Some of these concepts, designed to the particular needs of a given community, are occasionally adaptable to other municipalities as such or with a few modifications.

Surprise plot twists

There are those who'd like to say that, given all of our power devices, firefighting should be done both more quickly and easily — so easily that we should be able to succeed at it with fewer firefighters. With lightweight ladders, two firefighters can raise a two-section 35-foot extension ladder, though neither of them will like it very much. The way ladder trucks are made today, the 35-foot ladders are in three sections, making them a good deal heavier.

Automatic devices should speed us up. We have electric smoke ejectors, gasoline-powered PPV blowers and saws, and hydraulically operated tools. Taking that series of devices in our hands should bring greater productivity, but how many times have you seen someone pulling away, trying and trying to start a saw while ready to open a roof? It should work just fine, because it was running a few hours earlier.

The smoke ejector: Give it power and it will run. How many times have you seen it set up with someone running out to the rig sorting among a box of outlet adapters? The portable pump: You had a drill the night before and it started right up and pumped for two hours. This morning, at a fire, you pull your brains out to get it to sputter a few times. Then you pull extra hard and break the rope.

What I'm saying is that the very things that are supposed to make it possible to achieve our tasks faster and better often encumber us. You can't always count on this equipment, because it is mechanical and it frequently fails.

Happy endings

Back to our basics: firefighting and the pumper and ladder truck. I firmly believe that all personnel should be trained to work either rig and perform with every tool. A firefighter who's working a line inside shouldn't have to be concerned about whether the roof is going to be opened — or be expected to do it, too.

Over and over it keeps coming back: Firefighting isn't just squirting water. Firefighting, if it's to be done well, has to be done thoroughly. Look at the composition of a football team. Basically you have a number of contestants on the line and another group in the backfield. Where would either group be without the other? Where would the sport be without that balance?

The advice I give is this: If you perform in a community with a good deal of multi-floor construction, continue to identify your operations as pumper plus ladder truck. Why? Because it works.

I never saw a greater example of this than on a cold winter night when I was riding with a big city ladder company. We were returning from a previous alarm, and there was a pumper preceding us. You could hear the dispatcher's signal come across, though his words weren't clear to me, then the gas pedal went down and the siren went on.

A few blocks along, the tillerman signalled that he could see the smoke from his perch. We pulled up alongside a big 2H-story storefront with apartments upstairs. A goodly amount of smoke was coming from a rear section right where we stopped.

The engine crew came off the back step with their line. The truck officer and another man went to the side door, and the rest of us lined up with our tools in hand at the side windows.

When the hose line was filled, the door was popped, the windows came out, the fire lit up and in went the line. Those of us doing windows went over to the other side and repeated the job. When the glass settled, the truck company officer put his head out a window and said, “We got it.”

What an experience! Both units working together, not doing one thing and then another, but simultaneously. That's the secret to firefighting. The ladder company, by its actions, improved the quality of life for the company on the hose line, allowing enough release for the fire to show itself and everybody went in standing up. The same old story.

Playing the protagonist

Since I've penned so many epistles about the work and versatility of the quint, I feel that I must explain my recommending separate units as opposed to a single one trying to do it all.

To begin with, it's a matter of staffing. I've yet to see any department put enough firefighters on one piece to fill out both functions. Some fire departments have created quint concepts that work. They're refined to that particular community and if you get down to reasoning, you will no doubt find among the ashes of intention the word “economy.”

Economy, in many cases, is unavoidable. Something had to be done and it was. So why do I write up the quint so frequently? Because it's today. Quints are far and beyond, in production, that of the standard ladder truck. This is based on the changing role of our modern function. The pumper is, in many cases, designed to take emergency medical calls. It isn't a pumper when it's being used to carry oxygen for dispensing to an unfortunate individual. If a car fire is reported in the district, a quint can respond with its gear and take on the car fire.

At a full-blown worker, when the pumpers are providing water and the ladder pipe is flowing, the pump on the quint can regulate the supply and pressure being dispensed. These big units are taking on additional assignments, in some places to such an extent that ladder companies are getting ladder company tenders, which add versatility and carry extra equipment. Many are the reasons that a quint is a sound acquisition. Many are the reasons for pumper tankers, pumper hazmat units and rescue pumpers. It's a bigger business than before.

That does not, however, change the need for the separate functions of the ladder and pumper companies. We still have fires — bigger, hotter fires — and they demand our best resources and tactical employment. It is not and never should have been a water battle only.

I will repeat, as I often do, that this process may not be your way of thinking. That's no rubber off my boots, because it's your right to take an opposing opinion. You may find a way to fight fire with more economy that's also more to your satisfaction. So be it. But the time-honored, time-proven function of separate pumper and ladder companies does work. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you do fix it, the fix could be something less than the good work you're doing today.

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Before retiring, Donald L. Loeb served the Dunkirk (N.Y.) Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter, assistant chief and chief. His experience spans six decades of military and civilian firefighting, teaching, and writing.