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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 Ben Waller on
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One other comment - there's a difference between a Tanker Strike Team and a Tanker Task Force. I'm a fan of the Tanker Task Force, because it includes an attack engine for each group of Tankers.
Tanker Strike Team - 4 or 5 Tankers
Tanker Task Force - 4 Tankers and an Engine
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Permalink Reply by Don Zimmerman on
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We had to do one with a ditch, 3 tenders, 1 5k foldatank, and 2 engines. We were doing an ISO rating increase test. If I remember right it went ok, no problems. I think we had to flow 500 gpm for 1 hour. We only had to drive like 1/2 mile to the ditch for the drafting.
One tender the bigger gallons one drafted and filled itself and then to other 2 grabbed the water and dumped to the foldatank, then one engine drafted from it and sent water to other engine and supplied itself.
It has been a while.
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Permalink Reply by Oldman on
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Joe, you are pretty much correct in how the shuttle test works. One thing you left out is the fact ISO automatically deducts 10% to account for spillage and residual water. So a 2000 gal tanker only gets credit for 1800 gal. The vacuum tanker is the exception and it receives full credit, because it empties fully, and is a sealed unit which prevents spillage.
We had a survey about 6-8 months ago and were denied credit for automatic mutual aid, even with written agreements and running schedules.
I don't see any way a single tanker will be able to achieve the minimum supply, unless the surveyor sets up your water supply beside a static source and lets you direct draft.
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Permalink Reply by Frank Svitak on
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Hi Ben, We are using the term tender to meet the "NIMS" requirements for terminology. We call ours strike teams, because they are going in to service with one basic type of apparatus, tankers, and we include an attack engine to set up the water source. I think that the use of the term task force would be wrong here. A task force consists of a variety of apparatus like ladders, engines, rescues, etc. that can perform any function needed, and a strike team is made up of the same type of apparatus that would be designed for a single task. Our county just updated our SOG's & I can e-mail anybody that would like a copy in ms word format if you would like to see them.
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If anyone would like me to e-mail our sog's, just email me at fsvitak@comcast.net & I will be more than happy to share these with you.
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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You absolutely need to get your mutual aid tankers involved. Your ISO rating isn't something to just "settle" on. The batter your ISO number, the better your insurance rates for your town are. Using 2 tankers and 1 tank, you will be fortunate to be able to maintain 250gpm. If a tanker breaks down, you don't get down time. You don't get a break. You get to try to flow 250gpm with 1 tanker. They want to see what your department is capable of. I reccommend using 3 dump tanks, 2 engines with master streams flowing out of the dump tanks. Use 2 additional Engines as filling stations. Have multiple tankers dumping/receiving water so you keep a continuous flow going. My department was able to get 1200gpm+ using 8 tankers.
They will also video record your whole process. If you show a lack of effort, your taxpayers will pay the price as well as your department. Consider your ISO rating your report card. Make the right choice.
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Frank,
A "Strike Team" consists of units that are all of the same type. If you include even one engine with a bunch of tankers (tenders) then it is no longer a Strike Team, it's a Task Force. A Task Force, by NIMS definition, is made up of two or more dissimilar single units.
I know that NIMS uses the term "Tender" but that is a misnomer on several accounts. First, there are thousands of fire department "Tankers" that were fuel tankers, water tankers, or corn syrup tankers prior to being adopted into the fire service. Suddenly they're "tenders". That's due to the FIRESCOPE system calling aircraft that drop water on wildfires "tankers" and the FiRESCOPE system being adopted for NIMS because...well because they had a lot of paperwork and forms with their system, and the federal government likes paperwork and forms, particularly when they can adopt a bunch of paperwork from another system, then add their own.
Where did FIRESCOPE get the term "tender"? They got it from Britain. The problem is that Britain uses the term "tender" generically the way we use the term "fire truck". They have "Water Tenders" - what most U.S. fire departments call "Tankers". They have "Rescue Tenders" - what we call "Heavy Rescues" or "Rescue Companies". They have "Pump Tenders" - what we call "Engines" or "Engine Companies". They have "Ladder Tenders" - what we call "Ladders", "Ladder Companies", or "Truck Companies".
In other words, "tender" is a meaningless, generic term that has been foisted on most of the U.S. fire service by the western-dominated wildland firefighting guys. I think it's time for the U.S. fire service to take back the term "tender" and change NIMS to reflect the realities of the mainstream structural fire service, that still use Tankers every day.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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Hey, don't hold back Ben. Tell us how you really feel...LOL
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There are thousands of fire department tankers in service. There are a handful of those flying water droppers that have hijacked the name.
Anyone who advocates calling the ground-based ones "tenders" is advocating for a major case of Wag the Dog. I think it's time we lobby Congress to force FEMA to invoke a little common sense and let the dog wag the tail.
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I prefer the definition of Alan Brunacini who said something to the effect that the fire service has thousands of water tankers, the forest service only has a few hundred planes. That we shouldn't change the name of our apparatus, the forest service needs to change theirs to BADLOW, Big Aircraft Dropping Lots Of Water.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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Thanks for the correction, Oldman.
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"If you show a lack of effort, your taxpayers will pay the price as well as your department. Consider your ISO rating your report card. Make the right choice."
This brings to mind a fundamental question - which may have been covered in another forum but I will ask it here.
Suppose a homeowner pays $500 a year for fire insurance in a district with an ISO rating of 9. What reduction of premium will be had if the ISO rating is improved to a 3 or even a 1?
I'm looking for a rough order of magnitude here - $50 or $100 per year?
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