Rural FD Tankers

For all of you members of rural FDs, chances are you still have home-built tankers on the road as we do. Check out this article on Firefighterclosecalls.com:
http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/fullstory.php?54934
I think over the course of time we have made all of these mistakes. We so far haven't had any major mishaps although we did have one really close call last summer. Because of that, our next tanker will be custom designed.

Anyone else still use milk tanks set on standard truck chassis?

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Permalink Reply by Oldman on July 3, 2008 at 7:05pm

We haven't used a converted truck since 1985 when, we were able to purchase a "real" tender built by E One. 2000 gal on a F800 chassis. It has served us well except to me, it was and still is more dangerous than the old converted trucks we used to use. The brakes and entire chassis were never intended for this application, which was surprising considering the manufacturer. As a result, you have to anticipate stopping a quarter of a mile before you need to. Fortunately, we have never had an incident, although I was riding with an Asst Chief driving a few years ago, and he did have the truck on three wheels as we rounded a curve. There are only 3 or 4 people on the department we will even let drive it. I'll be glad to get rid of it when we get our new 4000 gal after the first of the year. At least I was in on the specs on this one, so I know it will handle the weight.

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Permalink Reply by Ralph Anthony P.Rowan on July 28, 2008 at 12:24am

We are using a surplus Japanese tanker for our firefighting operations,its an 8-wheeler truck with 3,500 gallons capacity.It was former fuel truck but its tank is semi-elliptical and compartmentalized with each compartment having dividers inside.But sometimes you feel you are losing control especially when negotiating curves and going uphill or down.Thats why we run it only at about 50kph maximum to be safe.Im hoping that we wont have an accident with our tanker as its the only one we have.Even if we survive an accident,im sure the government will throw us in jail for damaging/destroying the tanker! Hahaha!