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ISO Water Shuttle with Tanker
I am from Tennessee, and we are trying to set up a water shuttle test for our fire dept. All of the videos i have seen for the water shuttle has had four or five trucks and two or three dump tanks. Does any one have exp. or video of doing it with one or two tankers and just one dump tank? I guess i was just wondering if any one has just settled for the min. of 250gpm, and not tried for a record breaker. Please let me know if you can help me. I need it!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by T.J. on
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I'll check in on this with my Chief and get back to you later, we just did a big water shuttle drill a couple of years ago. I know we had at least 7 tankers involved in the shuttle.
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Permalink Reply by kenny goines on
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Do you have automatic aid for tankers in your area? This can definately help you out. There is no limit on the number of tankers you can use.
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Permalink Reply by stepnout on
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No we don't. We live on Monteagle Mountain. Our roads are windy and a little dangerous. The next tanker is almost 8 miles from us and the other is about 5 miles and has to travel up from the valley. Im a little worried about even trying to use them.
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I think i can do the 250gpm with just ours, but i just wanted to know if any one had any notes or videos.
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As long as they get toned out when you do you get credit for them. We are currently getting ready for ISO to come throough and I know how much of a headache it can be. When you do it for iso people all apparatus will be there for the test so you dont have to worry about thier response times. But you have to have the automatic aid paperwork to use them if i understand correctly.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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Whenever we've done a Tanker/Tender shuttle for real, we've had at least 5 Tankers/Tenders and 2-3 dump tanks. I suppose it could be done with one or two Tankers/tenders, but why would you want to do it that way, unless that's all you can get together?
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Contact Chief Dwayne Pitts of the Tri-Community Fire Dept. in Collegedale, TN.
Tri-Community developed an ISO-rated water supply system with a tanker shuttle in the 1980's while I was an Assistant Chief there. I believe that they still use it.
Tri-Community can be contacted with information found at: http://tennessee.firedepartments.net/fire/TN/Collegedale.html
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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If I remember correctly you need to flow 250 gpm for a minimum of an hour or two. Just flowing from one tanker won't be enough unless you're right next to your fill site.
You can determine how many tankers you need if you know some things like:
- capacity of each available tanker
- dump time for each tanker
- fill time for each tanker
- travel time to and from fill site
Forgive me if you aleady know this, but here's an example showing how you can determine what you need: Suppose you have one 2000 gallon tanker and it fills and dumps at a rate of 1000 gpm. Your water source is 5 minutes away, so the total time would be 2 minutes dump/5 minutes to fill site/2 min. fill time/5 minutes back to scene, or 14 minutes total cycle time for the tanker.
Your flow rate would be 2000/14 or 142 gpm. Two 2000 gpm tankers would do it marginally, 3 would be better. You have to adjust for the size, distance and such but that's the basic idea.
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Permalink Reply by Frank Svitak on
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Joe, you hit it on the head, we have no water in our area & rely on tender shuttles for our water. We have to maintain a flow of 250gpm for 2 hours. If I am correct, ISO also states that you have to have that flow availablw with in a few minutes. We meet this by having another station roll with us automaticaly. We also are lucky enough that we have 4 tender strike teams in our county & when we activate them we have over 50,000 gallons on the move. That gives us more than enough to meet the flow requirements. I think the key here would be to have his surrounding tenders toned on the first alarm. At least the water would be on it's way at that point.
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Good point Frank, and one I forgot to add. Someone mentioned automatic aid agreements being important to ISO, and this is why.
I like the idea of a tanker strike team. I'll have to see if our county CAD system can handle that.
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At least 4 tankers (I refuse to use the term "Tender", but that's another story) are needed for an ideal water shuttle system. If your department only has 2, then a Tanker Task Force alarm such as many Maryland counties use would get you the additional tankers on the box.
The reason for 4 tankers is as follows:
Tanker 1 nurses the attack engine while the Tanker 1 crew sets up the first dump tank. Tanker 1 positions so that the dump position isn't blocked.
Tanker 2 arrives, dumps its water, drops its empty dump tank, and starts to the water supply source (engine pumping at a remote hydrant or from a static source). Tanker 1's crew also sets up Tanker 2's dump tank.
The attack engine transfers from the nursing operation to drafting from the first dump tank. Tanker 1 continues the nursing operation during the changeover to ensure that the attack engine doesn't lose prime.
Tanker 2 arrives at the fill site and starts filling. Tanker 1 completes the nursing operation and starts toward the fill site. Tanker 3 arrives at the scene, sets up the 3rd dump tank, and dumps its water. The attack engine sets up a power siphon operation so that the 3rd and subsequent tankers don't dump into the first tank - that tank is used exclusively for drafting. The power siphons move the water from tanks 2 through whatever to the draft tank.
Tanker 2 completes its fill and starts back to the scene. Tanker 1 arrives at the fill site and starts filling. Tanker 3 completes dumping and starts to the fill site. Tanker 4 arrives at the scene, sets up it's dump tank (Tank 4) and dumps its water.
The ideal here is that once the shuttle gets fully operational, the tankers don't have to wait in line for another tanker to dump or fill. Imagine looking down at a clock face. If the scene is at 12 o'clock and the fill site is at 6 o'clock, then there should be one tanker approximately at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock during the fire. If more water is needed, set up seperate shuttle system with a 2nd attack engine and 4 more tankers.
ISO lets you count mutual aid tankers as long as they are dispatched on the initial alarm in a standard way. A written mutual aid agreement, memorandum of understanding, or contract is the best way to prove that the mutual aid relationship exists when ISO comes calling.
Good luck with your system.
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Permalink Reply by firechief911 on
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i wouldnt get iso there with out at least 4 tankers 2 dump tanks what if you any problems with one of your 2 you would have to repair it and start over better to be safe than sorry . thats just my thoughts on it
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