I was curious to see how many departments use their engine as an all purpose truck, and set it up with just about anything you would need to handle 90% of the calls you respond to in the initial stages?
In my department, we have 3 engines, a tanker, tower ladder, rescue, brush truck with 6 wheeler and a utility truck. In our first due village truck, we have it set up for hydrant ops with all the adapters and tools needed for hydrant work, as well as some 5" supply line. But...we also have a TNT hydraulic rescue tool with a combination tool, ram, and a small brake pedal cutter, numerous 5 gallon pails of AFFF foam with the in line eductor and self educting foam nozzles, brush fire brooms, collapsible soft Indian tanks, cones and flares for MVA safety, chimney bucket with chain, bombs, mirror and gloves for chimney fires, TIC, and a few other things for an all purpose response.

Does anyone else do this to save on equipment and fuel bills? Just curious to see how everyone else sets it up.

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sounds like us. LOL an one of our trucks can do it all. Just depends on how much water you are wantint to pump on which truck you take.
We call our Engine 1 the work horse for that exact reason. We carry everything, but the firehall sink on that poor old girl!

The work horse.
We combine our brush truck and rescue truck, we went to a engine rescue, we carry all our extraction equipment and our co detector our brush and grass fire equipment and use it pull our trailer for the 4x4 mule. it saves on fuel and insurance and with man power shortage during the day, we only have to worry about getting one vehicle out. we are currently discussing combining our tanker and engine.
We have an F-550 we use as a rescue/EMS/ brush rig/ and miscellaneous call rig. We have also been known to fight a structure fire with it when we had our old pumper. We just responded with it and our tanker, it worked until mutual aid got there.
Our smaller rural townships are only issued with multi-purpose, wildfire/structural firefighting vehicles, called 'Tankers'. They are 4WD, carry both structural and wildfire equipment (including a ladder). Perfect? No way, but they do the job. and do it quite well.

This is a photo (borrowed from my friend Wildfire, thanks mate) , showing one of the latest type:


My Brigade also has a Tanker, but it's our second appliance, and much smaller and older than the one pictured.
Years ago we had a mini-pumper which was always first out to all calls except EMS runs, and we had that thing loaded with equipment until we dared not put anything more on it. Today it has been replaced by a dedicated brush fire truck, and we have three class A pumpers equipped so:

1 - first out all wheel drive fire attack pumper, built as a wildland interface fire rig with a 5 man cab, class A foam and full complement of structure firefighting tools. It has pump-and-roll capability with a front bumper mounted turret nozzle.

1 - rescue pumper with TNT tool set and rescue jacks, pre-piped class A foam with full complement of structure firefighting tools, pails of class B foam plus eductor.

1 - pumper-tanker set up for structure firefighting, with chimney can and brush set (this is kept at our satellite station along with a tanker), class A foam and eductor

We have gradually been equipping all three with hydrant bags, chain saws/K-12s and all have at least 800 feet of 5" LDH.

This kind of supports what I recently learned in a "shorthanded firefighting" seminar: equip each truck like it's going to be the only apparatus on scene for the first 20 minutes of an incident.

In our department it's not unusual for one or more of the pumps to stay in the station due to lack of manpower to drive them to the scene.
Thanks all for the replies.

Joe, that was basically what I was trying to say, about making each engine capable of handling a call alone for the initial stages until help arrives, thanks for bringing that up.
We also have chainsaws on our City pumper as well as a gas can, extra blades etc.
Our newest engine, the rural attack engine, we fit 5 lbs of stuff in a 1 lb space basically, but its effective. We have the pond, suction, strainers, ladders, full compliment of tools, TNT tool with power unit, two hoses and attachments, foam, foam equipment, brush tools, indian tanks, chimney pail, TIC, gas meter, 3 packs in the cab and 3 extra packs on the drivers side rear comp, and about 1000 feet of 5" line.

I guess the same could be said for our tower ladder as well, realy should be called a quint actually, because it has a water tank (about 500 gallons) and a pump, with crosslays, saws, hand tools, rescue rope with gear and hardware, stokes, vent fans, lead chord reels, portable lighting, and specialty forcible entry tools.

Here is the Tower...


Here is our rural engine...


And city engine...


Our supply engine with 3000 feet of 5" hose, also equipped with attack hose, packs, tools...


All photos courtesy of John F. Kenealy of Central NY Fire Trucks, cnyfiretrucks.com
We just can’t do this; extraction equipment alone will fill a standard engine. We run 3 engines and a heavy rescue. The rescue rolls on all calls with 1 eng as structural, 1 eng as water supply/MVA’s and 1 eng as reserve. Departments that try do this with a pickup; their just kidding themselves, heck the cripping alone will fill half of one.
We have a heavy rescue also, with the older kinman rescue tool, rams, cribbing, hand tools, cut-off saws with all types of blades, porta-power set, come-a-longs with chains, jack stands, rope, rope hardware, harnesses, IC Kits, Haz-Mat suits and equipment, gas meter, TIC etc etc.

Here she is...

We found it hard to included any extrication equipment on our engines. On every response we have our rescue squad dispatched which carries pretty much everything you can think of. Our first line engine carries 750 gallons of water and the second has 1000. Our urban inferface unit carries 500 gallons and is mostly used on brush fires but can also handle any structure fire in our first due. We also have a mini-pumper mainly used on brush fire or when a big rig can't fit up a driveway or lane. Here is a couple of pictures:
LOL Amen brother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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