A second look at this has me wondering something else.
The lines in the photo are not charged. I wonder if that's because a chief or someone else did a quick calculation and determined that if both lines were charged the aerial might not withstand it.
Perhaps I should have given more facts. Late night fwy incident involving an overturned gas transport truck carrying butane. No fire. My guess is that the supply lines were a 'just in case' we need them.
Not trying to brag here, but in LAFD we have "creative" ways of getting stuff done!
Like for haz-mat stuff...wow, our civilian decon procedures have us using our ariels in interesting ways. One is for two ariels to spot opposit of each other (end to cab) and extend the arieals so that they lay on eachtoher roofs so its like a box and drap several rubbish carriers or tarps over the ladders. and the little space inbetweenthe front doors and the trucks is anyother truck using the ladder pipe 50ft in the air spraying the people who come out of the building with water or some other type of fluid. (quick rinse)
We do the tapr thing so that News helicopters cant see the civilans getting down to there undergarments and getting "showered" down. We do this really close to the front door of the building. So the trucks block the sides and the tarps the cover everything from the air. We do this so that only very little bits of exposer can be captured the the Media!!!
Excellent idea Marc. Those news helicopters can see everything! They make it very hard sometimes to maintain patient modesty and confidentiality. Remember HIPPA! Stay safe!
Ben I was wondering the same thing about the LDH stressing the ladder because the hose is heavy enough with out being charged let alone with water weight.
And another question I have is about the couplers. When the hose is charged how do you keep the couplers from being forced up and possibly damaging the rungs?
As long as the LDH is charged in a controlled manner, the couplings shouldn't shift enough to damage the rungs. They can be strapped to a rung with webbing or rope.
Dry 5-inch LDH isn't heavy enough to collapse a properly-operating aerial ladder - it weighs only 85 to 10 lbs per section. Any decent aerial should be able to handle 200 lbs of dry hose.
I hear lots of horror stories about the weight of LDH, but I don't agree. My department uses 5 inch LDH and we routinely drain and pack hundreds of feet after a fire with three or four firefighters per engine. It's not significantly harder than packing 2.5 inch.