Archive for the ‘commentary articles’ Category

Bridge Collapse After Thoughts

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

by Walt Lee

Minneapolis Fire Department (MFD) covers 59.7 square miles with a population of 382,618. It has a budget of 50 million, 424 sworn members, and 19 stations that consists of 19 engines, 5 ladders and 2 heavy rescues trucks.

The function of the MFD Engineering Officer is to be a liaison between city departments. One of these departments is the Minneapolis Public Works where the Fire Repair Shop is staffed. The facility is located near downtown. It has five bays for fire with five full time mechanics, one travels station to station to perform quick repairs while the other four work at the shop on longer term repairs and major Preventive Maintenance (PM) work. The shop is managed by an Equipment Repair Foreman. The Engineering Officer position involves working with the Fire Shop Foreman on such things as rig specifications and acceptance of new rigs, modifications, installation of tools, officer vehicle build, repairs, maintenance, etc. The two different city departments work well together.

What makes this relationship work so well is that the Engineering Officer relies on the Shop Foreman to know not only the maintenance of the rigs, but also the operation of the equipment and the department. In turn the Shop Foreman relies on the Engineering Officer to know the shop functions and have a keen understanding of the operation, maintenance and repairs of the fire equipment. Minneapolis Public Works, Fleet Services Division views Fire, Police and support of snow removal equipment as their main functions and responsibilities; and in that order.

This relationship proved itself the evening that the 35W Bridge collapsed…..

(more…)

Cab “Stuff”

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

by Robert Tutterow

A considerable amount has been spoken and written about seat belt usage and the lack thereof. However, loose bodies inside the cab of a fire apparatus in the midst of a collision or rollover are only part of the problem. All the other “stuff” inside the cab will become projectiles unless they are securely fastened.

Maybe you have seen the graphic footage from a video camera mounted inside a cab during a rollover at one of the crash test facilities. The good folks at CAPE (Center for Advanced Product Evaluation), a brand of IMMI (Indiana Mills and Manufacturing, Inc.), just outside of Indianapolis have made such videos for fire apparatus cabs. One of the most “wow” moments if viewing their videos is to watch the unbelted firefighter slam against the belted firefighter. It’s the body blow blitzing linebackers can only dream about.
(more…)

NFPA releases new Apparatus Maintenance and Testing Standard

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

by Tom Stalnaker

What’s new in fire apparatus standards? There are over 200 committees of volunteers that help the NFPA develop standards for many subjects relating to fire safety. One of those committees deals with standards for Fire Department Apparatus. Almost 10 years ago this committee realized that the existing standards for pump testing (NFPA 1911), aerial testing (NFPA 1914) and preventative maintenance (NFPA 1915) did not comprehensively cover all the issues related to testing and maintenance of in-service apparatus. We began a process to pull together the existing standards with new material developed to cover the gaps, in order to create a new standard. Out of this process came NFPA 1911 Standard for the Inspection, Maintenance, Testing, and Retirement of In-Service Automotive Fire Apparatus 2007 Edition which is now available.

(more…)

Thunder Road

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

by David White

Imagine a remake of the 1958 classic “Thunder Road” in which Robert Mitchum sped around in a souped-up hot rod complete with a custom tank for transporting illegal moonshine. Today, the Mitchum character might be tempted to pour that moonshine in the gas tank instead.

Ethanol is known by many names. To chemists, it is ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol, made by fermenting almost any material that contains starch or sugar. Most ethanol today comes from corn, wheat or switchgrass. Connoisseurs of mountain-made bootleg liquor will know ethanol best as moonshine, white lightning, fire water or old stump hole. At 190 proof, ethanol packs quite a wallop.

(more…)

HID Scene Lighting

Saturday, November 17th, 2007

For most of the years since Thomas Edison successfully patented the carbon-filament light bulb in 1889, lighting technology has changed very little. Of course, there have been improvements of the art, but at the heart, most lighting technology has relied on one key: an electrical current passing through a thin filament creating the light. This has been particularly true for automotive lighting such as those found on emergency vehicles. With the exception of strobe lighting, the state-of-the-art in vehicle lighting for most of those years relied on the same basic concept demonstrated by Edison’s patent.

Not anymore.
(more…)