Rescue51

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Posts posted by Rescue51

  1. Posted

    Yesterday there was a response for a brush fire in San Miguel's district and I had someone code behind me and it was one of the older San Miguel type-3 Navistars, rolling code to the incident. It was designated as Brush 46. I thought that was interesting. It had all the old school lights on it, but a great siren, and I wish who made that siren because it is very unique. I suppose Brush 46 is a rover or float rig where they can place it anywhere in district, likely depending on fire danger and staffing. Sorta like Light & Air 46 (E-One) which once was the district's rescue.

  3. Posted · Edited by Rescue51

    Little addendum to my last originating post here. Chief Downing had a good relationship with Crest and Bostonia FD (respectively Fs18 and Fs19). I believe at that time Crest/Bostonia was headed by Chief Daryl Jobe (or Jobb??) . Daryl was good at grant writing and ended up, due to that, getting funded for those Ferrara pumpers, and the Ferrara rescue that got absorbed by San Miguel Fire-Rescue, but prior to that Cal Fire. At one point the union between Crest & Bostonia was called East County Fire. Fs19 had a van-like Ford box ambulance (Aid-19???) and that always ran up the grade to the medical aids in Alpine, think it was only BLS. The 2 E-One Hurricanes that Chief Downing spec'd and had the builds on, they were fairly innovative, with roll-up doors back then (circa 1990), and I believe E17's may have been one of the first rescue-pumpers in that era. The roll-up doors had not yet been perfected and some of the engineers + FF's complained if E17 got on an uneven grade or slope, the doors would not roll-up.  Not sure if Campo FD took the E17 or E24 (reserve) but eventually they ended up with one of those Alpine pumpers for a while (see photo). ~Rescue51

     

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  4. Posted

    Was up in Alpine this past Sunday and noticed a brand news spanking nice looking BC rig, a Chevy pick-up with the usual command bed. Really nice looking rig with the chevrons in the back. The gentlemen driving stopped up the street and I regretted not stopping to introduce myself and take some pics. Not seeing anything about it in social media, so standby for some pics. Not sure if they go by BC-7 or 4701 up there. In the old days it was Fire-47, and my friend the former chief "Woody" Downing, unfortunately, I learned passed on I think this past July. For those that did not know Chief Downing, he was quite progressive for the little Alpine Fire Department back in the 1980's and 1990's. He was responsible for getting them the two beautiful then new E-One Hurricane pumpers that were the light show in town before LED lighting. He was spearheading a new station which was designated as Station 24, Harbison Canyon, and actually one of the Hurricanes was E24. Due to budgets and internal politics on the fire board, that Fs was never funded/built. There is now a Fs24 with a County of San Diego Fire Authority rig, staffed by Cal Fire.  I was wanting to get to the El Cajon or La Mesa car shows since Woody was still attending and showing his vehicles. Due to COVID environment and all the chaos, I never got to go by. I believe Woody at one time had an older Crown pumper in his personal fleet. ~Rescue51

  5. Posted

    Seems Rosenbauer is making inroads in the industry with increasing orders/deliveries. They seem to be innovating. KME has made much progress in reliability over the last decade or two. As good as Pierce is, I believe build wait times and the prices of Pierce equipment, present a compelling reason why agencies are looking at the alternatives. 

    x635 likes this

  7. Posted

    Anyone know the status of Truck-6? It seems like it has not been on runs for sometime now, E206 or Squad-6 is running the calls. This is the truck I kept broadcasting here, is run into the ground due to excessive medical-aid runs. I am seeing the beautiful new San Miguel Fire-Rescue T15, running way-way-way too many medical-aids too. Its coverage area has lots of halfway houses and group homes. They better get a squad/patrol/quick-attack or something before they run their new truck into the ground too. The problem is not gonna get any better, but worse, and as it does these agencies are just too quickly depreciating their trucks and running them into ground from excessive wear & tear.  ~Rescue51

  8. Posted

    Major damage though not destroyed, to the Ramona, CA., McDonald's on Main Street, early this morning.  Never went 2nd alarm as far as I could see.  Mostly smoke/water damage. It was noteworthy to see that Santee FD's TDA, T4, responded all the way to Ramona for the assignment. San Diego Fire-Rescue looks like they sent T40. In my mind, those are long runs for those two trucks. I sorta would think Poway would dispatch a truck, though maybe theirs is down or was already committed.  Way back I thought Ramona had a 50' ladder/squirt/stick?  It was an E-One Hurricane if I can recall. Seems Ramona and that area is truck poor, and the entire East County sorta seems 'rescue' poor (dedicated rescues, technical/USAR, not paramedic, I never agreed with calling a medic/EMT rig a "rescue" like some agencies). 

  10. Posted

    In the new copy (June 2021) of Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment, they have a nice article on SDFR acquiring the new Pierce TDA's, Truck 1 & Truck 35.  The article goes on to mention SDFR will be ordering (if not already in-build) 2 more exact same specs TDA's for a total of 4.  Aerial is 102 feet and the Ascendant brand.  I thought the Ascendant was 107'.  Interesting to note from article, that the aerial ladder is not pre-plumbed with waterway. I recall the former Santee FD T4, was not plumbed and some of the FF's complained about that.  And thoughts out there on this debate of pre-plumbed or none?  I tried to get a link for the article but so far it looks like Fire Apparatus magazine has not posted the article on-site. I have inserted a pic I took of the specs on T1 and T35. ~Rescue51

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  12. Posted

    Plus Santee Truck-4 has no water/pump, so it too could see great benefits from a tender unit with water/pump, and perhaps that unit could be used to respond to all the MedAid calls T4 responds to, reducing the wear-and-tear on the newer Pierce TDA T4. 

  13. Posted

    I meant to say in above post that what is important in the fire services is tradeoffs. The way I look at it is these trucks get run into ground and well depreciated, due to their high run volume on BLS/MedAids, lockouts, and rescues at a distance (like when Santee T4 responds to Alpine for a vehicle rescue, or San Miguel's T15 runs a call into El Cajon).  This is not effective nor efficient use of an expensive truck that often times is out of service because of high usage--look at how often Heartland/El Cajon's T6 has been out-of-service, thus cannot respond to a working structure.  I like these mini-pumpers or quick attack rigs. As you can see, you could configure one for a quick brush attack rig, or rescue, or low height profile to get into parking structures.  Even though the one says Vengeant, I believe it is the model name and made by 911 Rapid Response, in Pennsylvania.  Nice rigs!  A YouTube video too here to look at aspects of a mini pumper and have it serve as a squad, run it on MedAids, or even run it as a truck tender since it has a water/foam tank, pump, that many trucks lack (like T6 and T11 in Heartland's area).  ~Rescue51
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV8STiPObxc

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  14. Posted

    If you have followed my rants, I am going to be like a parrot and rant some more (or repeat my mantra): The east county agencies are running their trucks into the ground. First off, San Miguel Fire-Rescue runs their new Pierce T15 on way too many medical aids at BLS level. They need a squad or quick attack to run on those calls, why they'd be better off running an older brush rig on those. Heartland Fire-Rescue's Squad-6 has picked-up much of the load previously put on T6, but T6 still runs many BLS medical aids, due to the call volume out of Fs6, largely due to all the low-income housing and assisted care facilities in their area. I've noticed lately on rescues, usually TC's involving extrication, our east county is running two (2) trucks on the run.  Right now a rescue is underway in Spring Valley with both T15 and T11 assigned, just clearing and they were dispatched @ 9:49 this morning.  If our area got a working structure with need for ladder truck, we would be fairly TRUCK short. I believe the reasoning for two trucks dispatched is for both more tools and manpower. If you had more squads or dedicated RESCUE rigs you would not need to dispatch the trucks. In the past we had dedicated rescues, one time San Miguel Fire-Rescue had a rescue, El Cajon had a rescue, La Mesa had a rescue, Santee had a rescue. None of them have rescues, having gone the route of tasking trucks now for rescues. I believe this was a mistake, but perhaps a reality to make budgets work.  La Mesa has rescue capacity from their truck, and also from RE12, which is a nice rescue-pumper.  I think getting a utility truck type squad with rescue capacity would be ideal for these agencies mentioned, or a Navistar or Freightliner medium size dedicated rescue that could be used to roll on medical aids, versus the trucks. Thanks for letting me rant. Rescue51

  23. Posted

    On 4/13/2021 at 3:44 PM, x635 said:

    Great to see Seagraves for Long Beach!  Hoping their neighbor to the north, LAFD, will return to Seagrave at some point in the near future. 

    I am not sticking up for Pierce, I am a bit indifferent on Pierce v. Seagrave, but curious why would some prefer the Seagrave over the Pierce, especially in a department like LAFD that has gone with a fleet majority of Pierce?   I am one that likes the competition and don't mind seeing more Seagraves, E-One, KME, HME, Smeal/Spartan, etc..  Pierce is certainly well liked and popular in Southern California, however it seems their price points are a bit high and I heard build times longer. 

    freakinmusket likes this

  25. Posted · Edited by Rescue51
    update

    Just after the 0900 hours this morning, a MCI event occurred near at 1400 block of B Street, just east of Park Blvd..  A Volvo station wagon that had been seen driving erratically ran into 9 people who were under the bridge, housing themselves out of coming rain, who apparently were homeless.  SDPD reporting the Volvo travelled up onto the sidewalk where the victims were.  The Volvo driver, 71-yo, is believed to have been impaired.  So far 3 of the victims were declared on scene 11-44, the others transported with 3 in critical condition.  I am attaching a pic from PulsePoint of the event and unit assignments.  I am also inserting a YouTube video link, from someone I know who is a popular photojournalist in San Diego ~Rescue51

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg2AVGLLohc

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