Urban Tanker/Tender Shuttles

I live in an area that has hydrants. A couple of years ago a company had a large fire with little to no water supply. They called for engines were most carry 750 to 1000 gallons. No one had a drop tank so it was fill into an engine and move on. This would have been a perfect chance to run a real tanker shuttle or at least bring in a drop tank.

But in urban/suburban area's we don't think about it or practice it. People might say we have hydrants everywhere so we don't need to practice that. 3 reasons you might - a looped hydrant system. We assistanted on a fire several years ago in an industrial complex. Large lumber yard. had 4 hydrants but the problem was they were part of a loop so after using 2 you were just wasting your time. The next closest was several thousand feet away.

A large fire on a highway. overturned tanker with spread onto the roadside.

A large incident that knocks out the water supply. This just happened with the Gasline explosion in CA. Listen to the radio transmission, several times you could get hydrants were out of service. How much hose would you drop looking for a hydrant. And then how far would the next working hydrant be.

Even if you don't have tankers or tenders you need to practice setting up an engine shuttle. Its not as easy as it sounds. Engines have different connections. Finding a place to turn around. Having the right engines involved. You might have 10 engines but what good is a 500 gallon engine in this case. How many times as a driver drafted in a city or suburban area. I've done it once in 30 years and it was on a 4 alarm fire. Heck, you had to be able to draft to be qualifed as a driver but not anymore.

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Doug on September 21, 2010 at 4:15pm

I, too, am in an urban area with plenty of fire plugs around. However, we do have to depend on tankers/tenders every now and again. There is one small area of my borough with poor water supply(very small and old water mains, low pressure). We have not had to set up a shuttle though with drop tanks, just have the tanker/tender pump directly into our engine or ladder. Sometimes a second tanker/tender is called for. I can recall one other instance in which tankers/tenders where used in the borough, during a severe drought several years ago.

On the flip side, my borough is bordered on one side by a rural area, and on all others by other urban areas. We are automatic response with the FD on the bordering rural area, sometimes we go direct for fire attack, sometimes we're told to find a water supply, and draft and fill tankers/tenders. So, we practice and train on it. With one of the departments, of one of the bordering urban areas, we often run mutual aid with there is a pre-plan in place to draft for them, too. In a certain response area of theirs, inside of a 300+ acre park with an 11 acre man made lake to cover a large country club, a "casino" and multiple out buildings.