High Pressure or High Volume for Brush Fires

Our dept has had the county buy brush units for our volunteer fire company for a few years. The one 4x4 pickup truck we bought in the 70s was a 3/4 ton unit and we put a 200 gal tank and high volume pump on the unit. We also had a home built brush guard which was great. The county step in and told us the unit was over weight. So the tank was size down to 150 gals and the brush guard lost the bottom part of the guard which was a 3 inch pipe.

Later we let the county purchase the replacement unit in their colors in the 80s. It was another 3/4 ton beefed up to 1 ton with a 100 gal tank and no brush guard but had a high volume pump. The crews notice they ran out of water faster so they modifed a 1 inch booster line and put a garden hose nozzel on it.

After a while this unit was replaced with a 2000 unit, this time a 1 ton with a front winch, cross the bed tool box and still a high volume pump, 125 gal tank and a garden hose nozzel.

There has been talk by members to buy our own unit. I have been researching and seen high pressure and low volume skid units for sell by different companies. I figure buy a good 1 ton or better unit with a good flatbed body go to a local fire apparatus rep in the area and have them build us a unit that will meet what we want.

I have seen some nice ideas from members of FFN and from apparatus builders with websites.

The thing is to have enough water and pressure to knock and reach the fire without having to chase it across the woods, fields or where ever we need to respond. Maybe even have a foam tank as a extra.

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Permalink Reply by Rick LePage on July 15, 2012 at 1:20am

My experience with volume pumps on a wildland truck is you don't have the pressure required to get the water to the fire.

It does no good to have a 350gpm pump on a 300 gal truck if it won't pump the water up a 200 foot elevation change without a booster pump along the way. If you are using high volume on a wildland fire where is your water supply coming from?

I want a pump that can supply water to several nozzels 500-600 feet above the level of the pump, for that I need a pressure pump that can move 60-100gpm @ 200-300 psi. 350gpm @ 60-125psi just doesn't cut it.

IMO if you are counting on water to contain the fire it better be an island that's burning. :)

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Permalink Reply by Don Catenacci on July 15, 2012 at 1:44am

Rick,

Again, that may be the kind of wildland fires you fight with great differences in elevation. It isn't what we have here. We have tons of relatively flat area that we fight grass fires in. We don't need a pump that can do what you need to do. So we can go a little more to the volume side with around 150 psi for pump pressure.

The kind of rig you describe for your use would be overkill here. That was my point earlier. There is no one size fits all brush truck because there is no one size fits all wildland fire.

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Permalink Reply by Rick LePage on July 15, 2012 at 1:59am

Don,

Yes, wildland covers a wide variety of terrain. On relatively flat or rolling terrain such as wheat, hay or CRP fields we run our 2000 gal tenders with spray bars, they have volume pumps.

Each fire is unique and you pick the tool that works for that occassion. You also learn to work around the limitations of your equipment. The most valuable tool you have is between your ears.

If we don't get some significant moisture here we're going to become intimately familiar with wildland fire again.

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Permalink Reply by Don Catenacci on July 15, 2012 at 2:16am

We have been both in the POC world and even here in the city I work in we have had more grassfires this year so far that probably the last 3 or 4 altogether.

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Permalink Reply by ashfire on July 15, 2012 at 10:38am

I brought up the history of our pickup truck brush units. Our history goes back farther. Our first brush unit was our first pumper we bought from another dept in 1950.

1930 REO Speedwagon with a front mounted pump and 200 gal tank.

Later the chassis and pump was scraped and the body was mounted to a Army surplus 1950 Ford chassis. The only thing I have never learn is if there was some sort of pump mounted on this unit to pump water.

The dept purchased a new 1957 4x4 Dodge Powerwagon American La France Little Mo with roof turret. This unit was also a foam unit and today would be more of a mini pumper.

This unit was scraped close to the mid 60s. The chassis sold to a gas station to be used as tow truck.

The next unit was a 1967 4x4 open top Ford F500 Young Fire Apparatus brush unit. 250 GPM pump and 250 tank. This unit was also used as a mini squad so it didn't have a hose bed. Instead it had bench seats in the back.

This unit was sold to a company in PA and later sold again to Ambrose GA where I have been trying to track down if the unit is still in service, sold again or sitting somewhere rusting away.

The next unit was a two wheel drive regular cab 1973 Dodge D200 pickup which had a skid unit 200gal tank and pump placed on it.

This unit was involved in a auto accident which turned the unit over cause alot of damage.

The county rebuilt the whole thing and and placed the skid unit on a 1974 crew cab International pickup two wheel drive after which our dept bought a new 1975 4x4 Ford F250 and the skid and pump was placed on that unit which by the county told us the unit was too heavy.

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Permalink Reply by WCFPD 2006 on July 22, 2012 at 3:42pm

we run ALOT of brush fires......expecially now since we are in an extreme drought condition......we have 7 brush trucks with 250 gallon tanks that have voulume pumps and 3/4 hose on booster reels.....and also 1 inch forestry line ( we cover about 240 square miles by the way) all that works great but our ace in the hole is that 5 of the trucks pull UTV's either a gator 4x6 or a Polaris ranger...most have 65 gallon tanks with high pressure pumps, they are actually pressuer washer setups and work awesome. 2 people can put put a ton of fire in a big hurry. Our UTV's are what we use the most and saves alot of man power.

we also have started carrying 200 FT of forestry line on every engine.........

while these types of set ups may not work well for you, we were one of the first depatments in our area to use the 4x6 gators and now nearly every department in out area has atleast one of them..