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Trucks Freezing up!
We had a call this evening for power lines down due to an ice storm. While out on the call a few firefighters where worried about the water in the trucks freezing up. That leads me to my question; What is the best way to prevent this from happening?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Smoke Eater on
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recirculating your water through your pump. Also make sure you open your drains at the station but close them before rolling out the door. Other than that there's really not much else you can do. We usually put a salamander heater on the panel when we get back and let it run for a while to help thaw it out.
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Permalink Reply by anne potter on
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When running the pump leave a line open so the water flows.. Up here where it get -30 below.. deal with this problem all the time
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Permalink Reply by Aussie_Wildfire on
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Huh? what? Ya speak tha english? what you talking about? :)
A HOT AUSSIE :)
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Permalink Reply by John on
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Pretty much what everyone is saying recirculate the tank water on the engine.
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Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on
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Yup, keep the water moving is about all you can do. This reminds of a call we got when I first got on. There was a housefire a few towns over and we ran mutual aid that night. The call came in about 2300 and we didnt leave till about 0530 the next day. I think the temp. was about -2 that night. We rolled up and this house, (it was really a mansion, something like 20,000 square ft.) was fully involved. It was and probably will always be the biggest fire of my career. There were about 9 or 10 departments there if that gives you any idea how big this 4th alarm fire actually was. All we could do was "surrond and drown" but even that was slow going. All the hydrants that were close by were frozen so they were trucking the water in from about two miles down the road. By the end of the night, water was freezing in the tankers before they could dump it, pumps were frozen, trucks were covered in ice, doors were frozen shut, lines were frozen in place. No joke, we used an axe to chop a 5" off the pump and just threw it away. We were able to salvage most of our lines but ended up just throwing them on top of any truck we could and hauling them back to the station still frozen in the shape they were laying on the ground. A reporter that was there got a real good pix of about 20 FF's standing around the neighbors back porch that had a huge outdoor fireplace that the gentleman was kind enough to come out and light for us.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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Let me know....we even have in tank heaters but when the temp here drops to minus 20 or so it doesn't make a difference....they freeze and we have to change engines or mutual aid....can't stop it from happening...we have tried and have even tried working with the companies that make the equipment....still the same...it will happen......Paul
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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Winter can be a real bear. The biggest concern is keeping the pump and intake/discharge gates from freezing. If a valve freezes, you can't open or shut it; but if a PUMP freezes, that's a major repair if the pump housing cracks or other damage occurs.
In addition to opening all the drains as others have said, make sure to remove the caps on the pump intake and discharge outlets, and open the gates to make sure they are drained. Then dry off the threads on the inlets and caps, and apply a light coating of grease. When you reinstall them just tighten them down gently by hand. There won't be any water in the threads to freeze and will come off easily regardless of the temperature.
We also put antifreeze into the portable pumps so they stay primed and ready to go.
Years back we had a house fire on a cold night in January and everything froze, including the first due pumper which I happened to be driving. The throttle was frozen at about 1800 RPM and I had to drive it back to the firehouse like that. On snowy, icy roads no less. Mutual aid companies had set up huge propane-fired heaters in the fire house so we could thaw out all of our equipment and eventually get it back in service.
Things happen, and you deal with them.
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