The Name is Funny because....

I thought I'd join this group because of the name " Cancel the Engine". I work on a truck in a 1 truck, 1 engine department in a fairly busy ghetto/old folks community. Anyways, the last 3 good fires we've had, My truck has either Put it out and was smoking cigarettes before they got there or beat them into their own district and put the fire out for them. The latter has happened more often than anything. Man I love my Truck.

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mick Mayers on December 27, 2007 at 5:26pm

You know it; you either love us or hate us. But everyone still wants to be a truckie.

Permalink Reply by Steve Hobbs on December 28, 2007 at 10:37pm

The best day on a truck is when you meet the engine co. at the door with a can as your comin out and tell em, "We just need you to mop up guys".

Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on October 15, 2008 at 2:05pm

I don't hate the engine guys. I guess they serve their purpose, but my department has knocked alot fo fire with the truck. Our truck is almost 17 years old and it has its' problems, but by the grace of God almighty, we always manage to get the job done. We don't have alot of the finer things that some newer trucks have, but an old timer told me a long time ago, "Bells and whistles don't save lives."

Permalink Reply by Mick Mayers on October 19, 2008 at 8:53pm

I have absolutely nothing against the engines. In fact, I love my little shiny-object chasing, water-bearing buddies and I know that if it weren't for them, fires wouldn't go out. However, going along with a blog entry by Jay Lawry that's out today, there's too many chiefs out there who don't have an appreciation for what it is that truck work entails and how to get it done. I have people in my own department that think they can just throw four guys on a truck and everything will go fine at the next fire. I tell these guys that if I'm putting four people into the areas that are most likely going to get them killed if they screw up (over the fire), I'm putting in four people who don't screw up.

Call me biased (and there's probably some engine jockey from my department reading this now), but when I've got something going on and things are getting hairy, I know that one company I can rely on to get it right is the truck company (or the engine companies led by officers who are ex-truckies).

Permalink Reply by Nick Devries on October 22, 2008 at 11:39am

i love the old trucks. we have a 22 year old open cab seagrave 100' (reserve) and that thing can kick some serious tail. we sit side by side with the other truck companies in the county, and she holds her own for sure. i'm almost sad to see that we're getting the new truck in at the end of the year :(

Permalink Reply by Rob on February 7, 2009 at 4:30am

Well, I drive one of those little object chasing water bearing rigs, but buy the crew that jumps off you can't tell we are an engine company. It seems like I always get the mongo's assigned to my crew, not complaining mind you, that is a good thing. We had 2 structure fires today (one was a BS kitchen fire). We showed up on the better of the two way late in to the game (volunteer department and other houses were hanging out at the station). We climb off the rig with a crew of 3 and a combined tag team weight (without the gear) of 750 lbs and made our way in with irons, hooks, and braun. The engine guys told me in two different locations the fire was out. Had to rip open two walls in one location to get to the source of the freaking smoke that kept filling the room and ripped open the ceiling in the other room and had this funny looking red shit fall on my lid. They wonder why I got borderline violent with the hook and politely asked for them to bring the G.D. Hose back so I could finish their job.

Permalink Reply by Mick Mayers on February 9, 2009 at 9:21pm

Of course, the hybrid "truck company posing as an engine company" has always been popular in my book, especially when we didn't have a dedicated truck company. Nothing wrong with engine company guys doing the truck work if it's gotta be done. And there's certainly nothing like "engine-based truckies" when you have a truck company that doesn't act like one.

I'm one of those guys that believes that being a truckie is a state of mind rather than a physical location, although if that physical location is on a 100-ft tillered aerial, it just reinforces things a little.

Permalink Reply by Holly on December 23, 2009 at 4:41am