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Wildland gear
Do you think all fire dept. need wildland gear. because our dept. doesnt have any wildland turnouts.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by firechief911 on
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they are needed but not required in arkansas . but the forestry is real good about giving grants for forestry gear about 3/4 of my guys have gear we got it all through forestry grants
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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All fire depts is a pretty big generalization. What's your typical fuel load. Terrain and wind conditions.
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Permalink Reply by Rae Ann Ozelis on
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It depends....location?
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Permalink Reply by Justin Buck on
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we are in a rural area with alot of trees and farm land
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its mostly flat lands with a few hills
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Permalink Reply by T.J. on
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I'd say ot depends on how many calls and the size of the fire, we dont get much more than a dozen calls of grass or tree fires and mostly the biggest is a couple of acres, so we use just out helmet gloves and bunkers, your turnout coat is up to you.
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Permalink Reply by A.J. on
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i think it depends on the land area and the wildland in your area and wildland urban interface. my entire dept was able to get wildland gear by the means of grants. which has been great during this summer fire season.
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This is kind of my point. In SoCal, particularly during Santa Ana wind conditions, brush fires are hours/days in durations. You don't want to be wearing full turnouts for that amount of time. If you typical 'grass' fire rarely if ever gets above a couple acres, then you may not NEED brush PPEs. They would be nice, but not needed.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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My department invented wildland firefighting... yea, I know, that's a pretty outrageous statement to make but I'm serious here. My department was started in 1926 and had to deal with the local Chumash Indians starting fires to manage the land. Burning acres of cattle grazing lands was not well received and as a result, methodology was developed to deal with these wildfires. I share this to create an understanding that we have been doing this for a long time and are very good at it.
With that being said, we have continually been refining how and what we do. Our Type III brush truck specifications for example have been adopted by manufacturers to sell to others. One of the most progressive things we have done recently has been to do away with double layering for our wildland PPE. After years of research and debate and finding the right folks to champion what we wanted to do, we no longer have to wear nomex outer pants and a long sleeved tee shirt under our nomex fire shirt. Heat stress alone dictated that changes be made here.
There is absolutely no way I could imagine fighting a wildfire wearing full structural PPE. You can purchase this stuff on your own of course, but it's expensive. One of the coolest things (pun intended) was the adoption of nomex cargo pants. Not wearing the double layering keeps you a lot cooler and helps prevent heat stress.
Another benefit that we have realized from the wildland ensemble is for our tactical medics that work large events. The cargo pants have deep pockets that facilitate carrying ems supplies when roving through 35,000 college students during an annual Halloween party that goes for blocks...
Hope this helps give you a better idea of what you should be wearing... Not to mention a radio harness, radios, gps, fire shelter and some good boots, like Whites. If you need any help with vendors or uniform specifications, give me a shout. Best of luck getting your new gear!
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Permalink Reply by Damon Dyer on
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We are in the same county and i can tell you wildland is a lot easier to fight fire in than bunkers in the 90+ heat of the summer .
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Permalink Reply by kenny goines on
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I hav heard rumors of you fighting brush fires in flip flops shorts and wife beater back in the day?
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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Being a suburban F.D., mine doesn't have any wildland gear. We use our structural firefighting gear for the small piddly grass fires that we get around here.
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