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What do you call them... ICS & NIMS Tanker vs. Tender Definitions... What's the difference?
Recently, while reading some of the FFN blogs, it appears that there is a flaw in our system(s) nationally when it comes time to define a vehicle that is used to bring water to the fire. The question posed here asks, "How do you define this type of vehicle? Is it a water truck, tanker or a tender?" Depending upon where you are located, these definitions may not match. So what's the difference? Does it really matter what we call these resource types? Are we all on the same page here? There is a difference... and it all has to do with whether you use USFS or NWCG ICS terminology or the NIMS terminology that does not include the word tender or tanker in the most recent online glossary... So, what do you call them?
Background Information:
The History of Incident Command System (ICS)
The concept of ICS was developed more than thirty years ago, in the aftermath of a devastating wildfire in California. During 13 days in 1970, 16 lives were lost, 700 structures were destroyed
and over one-half million acres burned. The overall cost and loss associated with these fires totaled $18 million per day. Although all of the responding agencies cooperated to the best of their ability, numerous problems with communication and coordination hampered their effectiveness. As a result, the Congress mandated that the U.S. Forest Service design a system that would "make a quantum jump in the capabilities of Southern California wildland fire protection agencies to effectively coordinate interagency action and to allocate suppression resources in dynamic, multiple-fire situations."
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Governor's Office of Emergency Services; the Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara County Fire Departments; and the Los
Angeles City Fire Department joined with the U.S. Forest Service to develop the system. This system became known as FIRESCOPE (FIrefighting RESources of California Organized for Potential Emergencies).
In 1973, the first "FIRESCOPE Technical Team" was established to guide the research and development design. Two major components came out of this work, the ICS and the Multi-
Agency Coordination System (MACS). The FIRESCOPE ICS is primarily a command and control system delineating job responsibilities and organizational structure for the purpose of
managing day-to-day operations for all types of emergency incidents.
By the mid-seventies, the FIRESCOPE agencies had formally agreed upon on ICS common terminology and procedures and conducted limited field-testing of ICS. By 1980, parts of ICS had been used successfully on several major wildland and urban fire incidents. It was formally adopted by the Los Angeles Fire Department, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), the Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES), and endorsed by the State Board of Fire Services.
Three reference sources are quoted below that include both the USFS, NIMS and NWCG.
USFS Water Tender Definition: When water is required, water delivery is important. The typical water tender carries 1200 gallons of water to support the fire engines and crews. Water tenders even are used to fill water dropping helicopters when a lake or reservoir is not nearby.
NIMS Resource Typing
Tender, Foam (Firefighting Foam Tender)
The apparatus used to mix concentrate with water to make solution, pump, and mix air and solution to make foam, and transport and apply foam.
Tender, Fuel (Fuel Tender)
Any vehicle capable of supplying fuel to ground or airborne equipment.
Tender, Helicopter (Helicopter Tender)
A ground service vehicle capable of supplying fuel and support equipment to helicopters.
Water Truck (Tender)
A truck with a permanently mounted water tank with the capabilities of dispensing potable or nonpotable water. The dispensing is handled through gravity or pumped. For pumping action, the truck's engine or transmission is usually used to generate the requirement dispensing energy. Uses can range from delivering potable water to shelter locations, nonpotable form for irrigation, assisting in wildfire situations, dust control, compaction requirements, flushing of storm conveyance sanitary sewer lines, and washing areas of dirt, debris, and dust.
NWCG Definitions:
Air Tanker: Fixed-wing aircraft certified by FAA as being capable of transport and delivery of fire retardant solutions.
A DC-10 is seen above making a drop of fire retardant on the Zaca Fire in Santa Barbara County, CA. Normally, you don't see this large of an aircraft unless the threat is significant. If these planes do fly, all other aircraft in the area are evacuated both during and for sometime afterwards due to the dangerous vortexes of air that the DC-10 creates.
Air Tanker/Fixed-Wing Coordinator (ATCO): This ICS position is responsible for coordinating air tanker and fixed-wing operations over an incident and reports to the Air Tactical Group Supervisor.
Minimum Standards for Type 1-4 AIR TANKERS
Type 1 Tanker: 3,000 Gallons / C-130, P-3, DC-7
Type 2 Tanker: 1,800 Gallons / DC-4, SP2H, P2V
Type 3 Tanker: 600 Gallons / S-2
Type 4 Tanker: 100 Gallons / Thrush
Note: Don't know what they look like? Click here.
(Ref: NWCG* Handbook 3, January 1998, Appendix A)
*NATIONAL WILDFIRE COORDINATING GROUP
So... are we all calling these resources by the correct identifiers? It all depends on where you work and what standards you are following. But one thing for sure, if it carry's water then it's either a tender or a water truck. If it's flying in the air, it's always called a tanker which is the term used in aviation to described an aircraft that is used to refuel other aircraft in flight. We simply copied what the air force was using...
Stay safe and never stop learning!
Mike Schlags, Fire Captain
Santa Barbara, CA
mschlags@yahoo.com
.
Background Information:
The History of Incident Command System (ICS)
The concept of ICS was developed more than thirty years ago, in the aftermath of a devastating wildfire in California. During 13 days in 1970, 16 lives were lost, 700 structures were destroyed
and over one-half million acres burned. The overall cost and loss associated with these fires totaled $18 million per day. Although all of the responding agencies cooperated to the best of their ability, numerous problems with communication and coordination hampered their effectiveness. As a result, the Congress mandated that the U.S. Forest Service design a system that would "make a quantum jump in the capabilities of Southern California wildland fire protection agencies to effectively coordinate interagency action and to allocate suppression resources in dynamic, multiple-fire situations."
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Governor's Office of Emergency Services; the Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara County Fire Departments; and the Los
Angeles City Fire Department joined with the U.S. Forest Service to develop the system. This system became known as FIRESCOPE (FIrefighting RESources of California Organized for Potential Emergencies).
In 1973, the first "FIRESCOPE Technical Team" was established to guide the research and development design. Two major components came out of this work, the ICS and the Multi-
Agency Coordination System (MACS). The FIRESCOPE ICS is primarily a command and control system delineating job responsibilities and organizational structure for the purpose of
managing day-to-day operations for all types of emergency incidents.
By the mid-seventies, the FIRESCOPE agencies had formally agreed upon on ICS common terminology and procedures and conducted limited field-testing of ICS. By 1980, parts of ICS had been used successfully on several major wildland and urban fire incidents. It was formally adopted by the Los Angeles Fire Department, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), the Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES), and endorsed by the State Board of Fire Services.
Three reference sources are quoted below that include both the USFS, NIMS and NWCG.
USFS Water Tender Definition: When water is required, water delivery is important. The typical water tender carries 1200 gallons of water to support the fire engines and crews. Water tenders even are used to fill water dropping helicopters when a lake or reservoir is not nearby.
NIMS Resource Typing
Tender, Foam (Firefighting Foam Tender)
The apparatus used to mix concentrate with water to make solution, pump, and mix air and solution to make foam, and transport and apply foam.
Tender, Fuel (Fuel Tender)
Any vehicle capable of supplying fuel to ground or airborne equipment.
Tender, Helicopter (Helicopter Tender)
A ground service vehicle capable of supplying fuel and support equipment to helicopters.
Water Truck (Tender)
A truck with a permanently mounted water tank with the capabilities of dispensing potable or nonpotable water. The dispensing is handled through gravity or pumped. For pumping action, the truck's engine or transmission is usually used to generate the requirement dispensing energy. Uses can range from delivering potable water to shelter locations, nonpotable form for irrigation, assisting in wildfire situations, dust control, compaction requirements, flushing of storm conveyance sanitary sewer lines, and washing areas of dirt, debris, and dust.
NWCG Definitions:
Air Tanker: Fixed-wing aircraft certified by FAA as being capable of transport and delivery of fire retardant solutions.
A DC-10 is seen above making a drop of fire retardant on the Zaca Fire in Santa Barbara County, CA. Normally, you don't see this large of an aircraft unless the threat is significant. If these planes do fly, all other aircraft in the area are evacuated both during and for sometime afterwards due to the dangerous vortexes of air that the DC-10 creates.
Air Tanker/Fixed-Wing Coordinator (ATCO): This ICS position is responsible for coordinating air tanker and fixed-wing operations over an incident and reports to the Air Tactical Group Supervisor.
Minimum Standards for Type 1-4 AIR TANKERS
Type 1 Tanker: 3,000 Gallons / C-130, P-3, DC-7
Type 2 Tanker: 1,800 Gallons / DC-4, SP2H, P2V
Type 3 Tanker: 600 Gallons / S-2
Type 4 Tanker: 100 Gallons / Thrush
Note: Don't know what they look like? Click here.
(Ref: NWCG* Handbook 3, January 1998, Appendix A)
*NATIONAL WILDFIRE COORDINATING GROUP
So... are we all calling these resources by the correct identifiers? It all depends on where you work and what standards you are following. But one thing for sure, if it carry's water then it's either a tender or a water truck. If it's flying in the air, it's always called a tanker which is the term used in aviation to described an aircraft that is used to refuel other aircraft in flight. We simply copied what the air force was using...
Stay safe and never stop learning!
Mike Schlags, Fire Captain
Santa Barbara, CA
mschlags@yahoo.com
.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by anne potter on
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Yea tanker we have two old milk trucks that we got next to nothing then sent away to get the drop staion put on.... so yea tanker.. People in Oxbow would not understand tender... Hell It's tooo much for me..lol
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Permalink Reply by Brandon Roark on
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Again, call it whatever is the common lingo in your area. See Page nine of the following topic to view my stance on standerized "lingo" for the fire service.
http://www.firefighternation.com/forum/topic/show?id=889755%3ATopic...
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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I think that no matter what you call them, the person on the other end of the phone is going to understand you on the East coast. But on the West coast, if you ask for a tanker, they'll ask back as to what type and how many you need. At a cost of literally thousands of dollars every minute, you have to be pretty specific as to what you need. It all depends on the incident and the potential that it poses I suppose, and of course, who's on the other end of the line when you are making the resource requests...
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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Well Mike, if any of us East Coasters ever make it to the West we'll have to be very careful of the terminology used. We will have to specify winged tankers or wheeled tankers...
that is, until the rewrite committee goes through and changes tender to tanker on all of the NIMS forms and documents. They'll come up with something different for the winged beasts.
All kidding aside, it will be essential for common terminology to be adopted nationwide, whatever the names are. We had a problem with different "10 codes" between adjoining counties, that resulted in the haz mat team showing up at the scene of an unattended death instead of the coroner. Oops!
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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And here in liesw the reason we can't go to an INTERNATIONAL standardisation of terminology as suggetsed in another thread on FFN.
Until there is a standard used nationally, how can you move to an internationally accepted standard?
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Permalink Reply by LT Lake on
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It depends if we are on a structure fire or wildland fire. All the fire departments arround here call the truck for hauling water a tanker unless we are working with the DNR on a wild land fire then they are tenders because the aircraft that carry and drop water from the air on the fire are tenders. Everyone knows this here and we usually use our department name so if we call in as fire department tanker everyone knows its a truck or if you call in as a fire department tender everyone knows its a truck. Most of the time we are on different channels to help the cross lines confusion.
stay safe
LT
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If we can't even coordinate between standardized ICS terminology and NIMS, how could we move forward with getting things coordinated worldwide? I think that using the internet in this manner will help bring out the flaws, assisting those responsible for making the necessary changes. All it needs is for someone to identify the problem, and hopefully get the ball rolling. Lot's of folks read this, let's see what happens... and one more thing, would it be called IICS? International Incident Command System...
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Mike,
Excellent research there. I have some additional points, some of which you've heard before.
1) "Tankers" have been the standard DOT term for vehicles that haul large quantities of liquids. This term was around for decades prior to FIRESCOPE or NIMS. That includes milk tankers, acid tankers, gasoline tankers, and other tankers...all of which have been converted to haul water for fire departments. The fact that it's a "tanker" doesn't change because we convert it from private-sector to fire department use.
2) Fire department driver/operators in states that require a Commercial Driver's Licens (38 by my last count) require specialized CDL endorsements for operators of vehicles carrying large quantities of liquids. That endorsement is a "Tanker" endorsement.
3) "Tender" is a meaningless, generic term, just like "Fire Truck". The actual Tender terminology came from Britain, where they have "Rescue Tenders", "Pump Tenders", "Water Tenders", "Ladder Tenders", etc. In other words, the root of this terminology means something analagous to the term "Company" in the U.S. fire service. Using "Tender" as an apparatus/company type is essentially saying "Command, I need a "Company Company" to respond.
4) There are thousands of fire department mobile water supply apparatus called "Tankers". There are maybe 100 airplanes that drop water on fires. Tying up the term "Tanker" for a few aircraft while forcing the "Tender" term on the much larger number of mobile water supply vehicles is a grand case of the tail wagging the dog. FIRESCOPE and NIMS have formalized that dog-wagging, but that doesn't make the terminology logical.
5) You move water in the "Tank" on the "Tanker". You don't move water in the "Tend" on the "Tender". It's completely silly to ignore the fact that those Left Coast "Tenders" move their water in...TANKS!
6) The bottom line is that we need to change the NIMS (and FIRESCOPE) terminology to reflect the reality that the vast majority of fire department mobile water supply vehicles are defined as "Tankers" by their departments, by the people that build them, and by the DOT that regulates them and their drivers. That leaves us with two problems. The first is conceptually simple...Change the NIMS and FIRESCOPE terminology to reflect reality. "Tanker" would be defined as a ground-based vehicle primarily used for mobile water supply. The Typing classifications of those vehicles would not change.
The second problem would then become "What do we call the flying water-droppers". You've already shown one option - just call them "Air Tankers". If that terminology is too complicated, or implementing it would cause dangerous communications complications to the pilots, then use Al Brunacini's term "BADLOW". BADLOW = Big Aircraft Dropping Lots Of Water.
You're right that the Air Force and Navy fly air-to-air refueling aircraft that they call "Tankers". However, those aircraft don't drop water on fires, so their terminology isn't pertinent to the fire service, regardless of what FIRESCOPE sez.
The other counterpoint I've heard is that FIRESCOPE and NIMS use the tender terminology, so we're supposedly stuck with it. That's complete B.S. "The Devil Made Me Do It" isn't a valid excuse for doing stupid things, and neither is "NIMS made me do it." It might be difficult, but an overwhelming, grassroots call for changing the terminology as I've proposed could make that change happen. I hereby call for said overwhelming grassroots demand for terminology change!!!
So...use "Air Tanker", "BADLOW", or whatever for the aircraft, but call ground-based mobile water supply apparatus what they are - TANKERS!
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Mike,
One other point...there are some pretty extreme examples of the tanks you can find on ground-based mobile water supply apparatus. Here's one: http://www.firefighternation.com/photo/photo/show?id=889755:Photo:2...
I realize that this is an optical illusion caused by the camera angle, but I did a double-take when I saw this right after I posted the above response. I'm betting that the people that operate the bulk storage facility shown call those bulk liquid storage-thingys "Tanks". If said mobile water supply apparatus actually existed, it would be another good example of why we'd need to call this type of vehicle a "Tanker".
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Permalink Reply by Bill Muehsam on
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Just to confuse the issue even more, what do you call an "Engine Company" that carries more than 1000 gallons of water? Depending on what "standard" you use, it could be an "Engine Company" (with a large capacity tank), a "tanker" with a large capacity pump, or a "Water Tender" with a pump. Between NIMS, ICS, NWCG, ISO, and NFPA, it acn get very confusing. We won't even get into Typing of any of these apparatus.
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Here are some examples of the non-flying "Tankers" to which I referred above:
http://www.laurelvfd.org/10hazmat021901.html
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2470775/
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-44502
http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=fire+tanker+photos&... (scroll down for the tanker photos)
http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=fire+tanker+photos&...
http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=fire+department+tanker... (Scroll to the 3rd photo)
Here's an entire page of fire department tanker photos: http://www.darchfire.com/tankers
Not a wing or aircraft part in site, and every one a "Tanker".
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Bill,
Good question - and the answer in most places is "Pumper-Tanker" or "Engine-Tanker". In other words, if the vehicle is a hybrid that meets the apparatus typing specifications of more than one vehicle type, there should be terminology reflecting both types.
"Rescue Engine" is another example of this. This one can be equally confusing, because a "Rescue Squad" in Maryland is the same thing as a "Rescue Company" in the FDNY, while a FDNY "Squad" would be called a "Rescue Engine" in Maryland.
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