The Surf City Volunteer Fire Co. and EMS’s newfangled fire truck, a rescue pumper design with a 20-foot boom on top, has been customized for the area’s post-Superstorm Sandy needs. It is due to arrive next week.
The fire company’s truck committee, encompassed mainly of former and current fire officers, did not want to get just another new pumper, said Lou McCall, fire captain and vice president, who has chaired the committee since its foundation nearly two years ago.
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| Photo by Lou McCall The boom on the truck can reach 28 feet. |
“Instead, we wanted an apparatus that would replace and combine both Surf City’s oldest pumper and its only rescue truck that were both exclusively used in, and victims of, Hurricane Sandy into one easy to use truck,” McCall stated. “It was also a high priority that we also considered the increasing amounts of homes being raised on pilings.”
The committee invested thousands of hours into getting the perfect truck. Members even visited with the Union Township Fire Department, which has the only other boomer in the state, McCall said.
“They were outstanding, allowing us to take quality time to show us and have some hands-on experience with their truck,” he stated. “We are grateful to them for that opportunity as it sold us on its capabilities.”
The boom on Surf City’s new truck, which can reach 28 feet, has a master stream nozzle on the end that can flow 1,000 gallons per minute and lift up to 1,000 pounds. The boom end also has a 6,000-watt light tower. Hose connections can serve as an elevated connection pipe to a raised residential structure, if needed, McCall said.
“The boom maximizes the efficiency of the guys, but it also can swing down and the nozzle turns so we can then get under the houses into the garages,” said Peter Hartney, president of the fire company and a borough councilman. “It just gives us so many more options.”
The truck also includes a 2,000-gallon-per-minute pump, and a compressed air foam system for four hose lines.
“It’s actually a better fire suppressant because you use less water, so you minimize water damage,” Hartney explained.
Almost all compartments have LED lighting, and tools can be recharged on the truck.
Since many of the department’s firefighters are EMTs, the truck also includes an EMS equipment area. This is a fire truck first for the company, which responds to calls from the southern half of North Beach all the way south to 84th Street in Brant Beach.
But the members are not the only ones interested in the truck’s innovative design. Representatives at Spartan Emergency Response, a South Dakota business unit of Spartan Motors that manufactured the truck, will be showcasing it at the international Fire Department Instructor Conference – the largest gathering of fire professionals worldwide – in Indianapolis in April.
During the borough council’s regular meeting last week, Hartney received permission to have the new truck exhibited in front of the world.
“Since it’s not going to be in service right away, the fire company said it was OK for it to go to Indianapolis. But it’s not our fire truck. It’s the borough’s fire truck, which we are eternally grateful for,” he stated.
Hartney noted Gloucester City Fire Department was so impressed with the truck that it is going to buy the same design.
“We should have copyrighted it,” Surf City Mayor Francis Hodgson joked.
Spartan reps will be taking the truck to the conference, and providing $2,500 in equipment mounting as well as a complete oil change upon return. An additional year of preventive maintenance, which is needed annually to uphold the warranty, will also be included.
Although custom designed by members of the fire company, the new truck is being funded by Surf City borough as well as Long Beach Township, which contributed $105,000. It was originally priced at $723,000 through the nationwide Houston-Galveston Cooperative Purchasing Program, but wound up costing $729,000 for necessary safety features. The borough is selling the fire department’s former rescue truck and old fire engine to make up for some of the cost.
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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