Fire Department Motorcycles - A Cost Effective Option?

Maybe the time has come for fire departments to do more than just consider using motorcycles for emergency response. This has been successfully done in europe for years and now the UK is giving it a try. Maybe it's time for us to do the same...

Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service is getting ready to trial a couple of firefighting motorcycle response units. (all photos by Tony Thomas).

Although motorcycles are already being used by Fire Departments throughout the world, this is the first time such a solution has been rolled out in the United Kingdom.

The 6-month trial will test two BMW RT1200 police-spec bikes that have been kitted out with two 25 liter water tanks and a 30 meter hose reel.

TCSS,

CBz

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Permalink Reply by Greenman on January 21, 2011 at 8:40pm

Thanks, my bad. But you see my point...

Greenman

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Permalink Reply by John L. VanAuken on January 21, 2011 at 10:38pm

Sorry not a trike, a trike is a motorcycle with three wheels, not an atv with three wheels or a car with three wheels. The vid, and I did take a look at it, is of a car that has three wheels, so yes it will roll, due to the fact, that it has one wheel in front to steer. As well as a high center of gravity, the motorcycle style trike, has a low center of gravity. Sorry still not proven your point, you need to look up your facts a little better. I have to agree with the vid, I wouldent buy one of those, I will stick with my motorcycle trikes, and my standerd motorcycles. The vid is funny to see though, laughed my arse off.

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Permalink Reply by RRW on January 22, 2011 at 1:46am

so jack, you are saying this isn't a bash? "and the ability to stay safely in the yard, hosing down the foundation."
you were doing good with numbers and facts. and yes i have done both .

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Permalink Reply by Darren M. Hays on January 22, 2011 at 4:04am

Sign me up! I had detached my Achilles tendon while living in Europe, a medic on a Bmw arrived first gave pain relief and had me ready for ride. I can say that our engine has been turned around many times for small calls,send me in with a bike, I'll decide to turn the engine around before it arrives.

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Permalink Reply by chino on January 22, 2011 at 6:24am

hola. el sistema parece muy bueno para incendios medianos aca en argentina hay una persona que lo esta perfeccionando y da mejores resultados ya que les inyecta otro tipo de gas y trabajaa mejor que el agua

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on January 22, 2011 at 1:22pm

so jack, you are saying this isn't a bash? "and the ability to stay safely in the yard, hosing down the foundation."
you were doing good with numbers and facts. and yes i have done both .

Or are you taking things out of context and looking for an argument?

Face it, when you have rigs staffed and ready to go, the response time and the time it takes to get water on the fire and meet the proper benchmarks, goes down. The fact is that given the time of call and time onscene, the time to flashover is relatively quick even for fully staffed career depts.

Now take a fully volunteer dept where there is a delay in response time and a further delay getting enough people on scene to mitigate the emergency, the time for flashover typically is already past.....meaning for many volly depts, the focus is on defensive strategy.

Now if you look back on the whole post by Jack, you will see he is replying to a link about injuries etc. When you are focusing on more aggressive tactics and you have the time to do so, you can see more injuries, vs if you get on scene and your focus is defensive.

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Permalink Reply by Lt. R. Scott Goodwin on January 24, 2011 at 9:01am

seems to me that as almost 3/4 of all fire departments in the US today are Volunteer that the risk would be higher and more incidents would occur. Gentlemen, please remember that a Volunteer is still a firefighter and quite frankly many are from very proactive and cutting edge departments! Many are well trained and a lot of times better trained than that of a Career firefighter who has the attitude of "its work and its my job and I am not giving any more time than my shift" mentality. Volunteers work their regular jobs and attend nights and weekend trainings to better equip their tool boxes if you will; not saying that Career firefighters dont either but only making a point. We are all in this together and this is always a touchy subject!!

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Permalink Reply by doran belknap on January 27, 2011 at 9:49pm

As FF/EMS Vol dept out in the sticks, we do tend to use povs especially for EMS calls. Our paid ems people take 20 to 45 minutes to reach patients. I often use my BMW R1200GSA to get to the scene first to size up and get GPS coordinates so ALS will know where to come. I also will call the bird if necessary. Many of our roads are dirt and MY GSA with knobbies can eat the roads well. I carry a fire extinguisher and BLS supplies in my panniers. Most of our fires are wildland so not much use for fire gear on my bike. AS someone commented that bikes are 2 wheel coffins, not everyone is suited for responding on a bike. No one else in my department would try to. I have an advantage in that I raced off road for years. AS my department training officer, I know the stats for POV accidents and I make sure that my men know the risks and prepared as possible.