More curiosity than need. All apparatus here in the county have a 4 digit ID. 1234. 1 being zone, 2 battalion or dept, 3 and 4 type and number. On a day-to day basis though, each zone uses a different type of numbering. Up north, all 4 digits are used. The big city and out east, in numerical sequence. Down south, E1 in the 5th dept. is Engine 51 and so on.
Permalink Reply by John on October 17, 2008 at 2:34pm
Our department only uses 2 digit numbers on our Apparatus, other than that I have really never looked into it that much. Ours start with E41, E42, E43, E44, E45, Ladder41, Rescue 43, Brush43, Hazmat44, and Medics 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 but only 2 medics are in operations from 6pm til 6am.
Our county issued every department a four digit number The first two identify the department mine is 13. We have fourteen departments in the county and they are numbered 1100-2500 in alphabetical order by names of the cities they serve. This does not include the one paid dept. in the county. They have thier own numbering system.
1300 base radio at the station
1301 chief
1302 Deputy chief
1303 Asst. chief (Training chief)
1304 Fire capt.
1305 Fire capt.
1306 EMS capt.
1307 Fire LT.
1308 Fire/Ems LT.
1309 EMS LT.
1310 water rescue LT.
The following numbers are the same county wide
11 - 49 members
50 - 59 Ambulances (ours is 1351 & 1352)
60 - 69 Engines (Also quints/ladder trucks, my dept. is the only vol. dept. in the county with a truck. ours is 1360 and our engine is 1361)
70 - 79 Tankers ( ours is 1371)
80 - 89 utility (ours is 1380)
90 - 99 special vehicles / boats (ours are 1390- boat, 1398- command car, 1399- command car
We use Type of equipment followed by the station # Our first out engine is E10 all of our trucks are # that way,
E10, R10, B10, T10. the second in each type is follow by a 2, E10-2. everyone knows the type of truck responding and who it belongs to.
So on one call it could be E210, second run it could be E310?
My bad if I confused you. We have 2 engines manned and a 3rd in reserve. The manned engines are E10 and E210. Always will be until they come up with a different numbering system. If one of these engines goes down, then E310 becomes the manned unit.
In my county we use 2 numbers. The first number is the station and the second number is the type of unit.
0-2 is ambulances
3-6 is Engines
7 and 8 are tankers
and 9 is utiltys
EX. a Station 8 engine would be named 8-5
but brush trucks, rescue, and ladders trucks would be ladder 8, Rescue 8 or Brush 8
In my county our engines have a 3 digit number firefighters have a 4 digit number. All fire units in the county start with 7 Law, public works and ems have a different number, then each dept has a different number ours is three our first out truck our minipumper is 1 Its unit number is 731 our second out truck our engine is 732. Unit numbers are 7301 7315 and so on ,other departments are 71-- or 75-- and so on
Our system is simple. Our station is designated #16 and our trucks are numbered by the type and what due. Our individual numbers go by rank and seniority.
RESCUE 16
ENGINE 161 - FIRST DUE ENGINE
ENGINE 162 - SECOND DUE
TANKER 16
BRUSH 16
SERVICE 16
Interesting; seems to be some pretty complex numbering, and some simple ones. This is just my opinion; we seem to be getting more like this (numbering system) around here. Anyone heard of NIMS and plain English, yes I know dispatch does not like it. All these numbers work good for you, your county; now lets go beyond that, 3 counties over or across the state, someone has a system close to what you have, confusing, you bet. We KISS; have 3 engines and 1 heavy rescue, simple, Dept name eng -1-3 , dept name rescue-1, little or no confusion and works at a large scene, multiple depts. Now if you do go to a large scale event, they will probably take shoe polish and mark your trucks the way they want anyways. We need to think beyond our little corner of the world.
Permalink Reply by JOHN on October 25, 2008 at 10:07am
The fire departments in marion county West Virginia that are volunteer use their company number, then another number from 1-9, Baxter Volunteer Fire Department, '' my department'' is company 2, our trucks are as follows.