Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Oldman on March 11, 2011 at 4:16pm

Way, way back when I first started (1975), we also had and FMC Ford with a high pressure John Bean pump. FMC was the parent firm of John Bean. I don't know whether the water extinguished the fire, or if it was just blown out. We fought vehicle fires, house fires, and I especially loved it on wild fires.

Permalink Reply by Izzy ( J. Bade) on March 14, 2011 at 8:58pm

yep, we had an '81 FMC with a Bean pump. not bad for what we needed it for, but the packing was always giving us issues, can't tell you how many times the Chief and I had to get under there and re-do the packing. argh !

Permalink Reply by SMOKEnPipesJim on March 17, 2011 at 1:27am

We Never had a HP pump, however the district next door had a bean it was a midi ON a 74 loadstar cornbinder, They used to like saying it was the best thing since sliced cheese, but frankly in the structure fires they responded it to and Used it at , then ended up more often loosing the building because the hp would push it all over,,, we definately had Balloon frames and so did they... they said it was great and it was from ground cover fires ..lol

FMC = Food Machine Corporation? they most likely bought Into Bean in the 60's

Permalink Reply by Russ on January 12, 2012 at 8:14am

one company in my dept in NY had a high pressure system and (in my opinion) it was misused. it is my understanding that the idea was that you would not vent but inject the HP and create steam which would put out the fire. in my expierences all it did was push the fire to another area of the structure. On brush fires it did better (like blowing out the fire) and when you really wanted something clean, at 600 psi it did the job well.