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East v West
Having served on both coasts, I find the difference in terms interesting. On the West we have engines, turnouts and trucks. East has wagons and engines(both of which seem to be the same) , bunkers and trucks/towers.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by T.J. on
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Never heard of a wagon used in the fire service tell then, cool to though:)
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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The "wagon" term is a throwback to the old two-piece engine companies that had a horse-drawn steamer engine and a seperate hose wagon that carried the hose. This terminology carried over to some motorized departments into the 1970's. Washington, D.C. operated two-piece engines that both had triple-combination pumpers back when I was a new firefighter in Maryland. If I remember correctly, they ran an officer, driver, and two firefighters on the wagon, which laid the lines and fought the fire, and a driver and firefighter on the engine, which caught the hydrant and relay pumped to the engine. It was a good idea in the days of 2.5 inch supply lines.
Most of the East Coast uses "Engine" designation now. "Wagon" may still used as firehouse slang, but most departments don't use the term in official designations. I've worked in three different East Coast states, and turnout gear/bunker gear were used interchangeably in all thre places.
I've also noticed that aerial apparatus with buckets aren't very common on the West Coast, while tower ladders and even some snorkels are fairly common in the East and even the Midwest.
Official terminology is pretty standard in the U.S., except for the tanker/tender controversy.
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There are some tower ladders and even snorkels. But here they are still called trucks. Perhapse the wagon designation is just a local DC area thing. A dept I used to run with was in Northern VA and there first run 'pumper' was designated as Wagon
I think LAFD still uses the Task Force concept. Basically as you described the two-piece engines.
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Permalink Reply by Josh Lakey on
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ive used most of tha terms here in NC but wagon is a first for me...bunker/turnout gear is comin(mostly used to say "bunker pants") and engines, tankers, tower, ladder, rescues and squad are all commonly used around here.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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Regardless what slang terms we have adopted locally, if you are ordering resources using either the ICS or NIMS terminology, you will have to call resources by the terms as defined in the glossary for each dependent upon where you are located and what standards your department has adopted.
We can romanticize the job and what we call things between us, but when it comes time for someone to pay for the stuff we order on an incident, it better jive with the paperwork or your going to be out of pocket thousands of dollars.
At some point, there needs to be a compromise reached between the right and left coast folks. What ever we come up with will be adopted by those mellow mid-westerner's. Incidents such as the recent hurricanes is bringing national resources together to work together with resolving whatever the issues are that present themselves.
The tender / tanker terminology is something that is not necessarily only used for structure or wildland firefighting. In the event of a national disaster, potable water is an issue where water supplies have been wiped out. The foam / water tender at my station was dispatched to Los Angeles when they had the big earthquake in Northridge years ago. LAFD had never had a need in the past for water tenders because of the awesome water supply that brings water to Los Angeles from the Colorado River. Add an earthquake to the mix, and you lose the integrity of the hydrant system. Hence, needing mutual aid water tenders.
Now considering that in the Western United States, everyone agreed to identify things using common terminology and we called it ICS. We simply cannot afford to be arrogant and claim that tradition calls for us to call things something else than we are used to calling it something else.
I remember back in the day when they made the change to tender for what we had been calling water tank trucks. A key point to remember here is that now, since these changes, the fire department culture on the West coast actually has gotten to the point when we hear someone call a tender a tanker, they end up getting made fun of with folks saying, "what part of ICS terminology don't you understand".
When I'm first in on a wildland fire that is threatening homes, you better believe that I am very clear when communicating with my Battalion Chief as to the fires potential and what resources we are going to need. This is why we have standardized terminology used by literally hundreds of agencies.
Now if we can just get ICS and NIMS to go back to the drawing board, and meet somewhere in the middle. We all have the potential for working with one another. Hopefully, with some progressive thinking, we can make some of these glitches work. ms
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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Shall I gloat? No, that wouldn't be nice. How about a small contented smile? Yes, that'll do :)
Sorry Mike, I couldn't resist - I'm not feeling too well tonight. I'll always agree that things like this are easier for us, we have more or less State-wide Fire Services, which with only seven States means it's reasonably easy to 'get along together'. Just as well really 'cos there aren't that many of us!
PS. We do have some stupid inconsistancies, but we're working on them!
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Permalink Reply by Mac Conant on
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IN my area, they are called Bunkers. Pretty much exclusively bunkers. We Have Engines, Attack, Tanker.
Engines are Trucks with a Pump, a tank for water.
Attack pickup-F350-450 sized trucks with a pump and water tank
Tanker self explanatory
We dont have them, but the towns near by do,
The Tower is the word used for any truck with a ladder. So we don't really have 'ladder trucks' we have The Tower.
So the normal "Truck Ladder" sort of thing doesn't apply to us.
Its Engine Tower
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