Why big tankers??

[k1500chevy97]

Out here in central washington we really dont have the luxury of having a water source near an incident.

So of course we need to shuttle water in. We have in our district (3) 3500 gallon tenders (if you call for a tanker you will have an aircraft over head dropping the red stuff) and (1) 2500 gallon tender for the job in addition to 8 smaller 6x6 tenders ranging from 1100 gallons to 1800 gallons.

Sometimes we do get lucky and have an irrigation canal or pond to draft from but most the time we don't.
So we just send our first and second engines to the scene third engine will find a draft spot somewhere within a few miles of the incident and then the tenders will work accordingly.

[LVFD301]

Here in the midwest - we now have a new CAFS engine, with 1250 gallons of water at station 2, along with a 5k tanker. Station 1 has a 1k engine with a 1200 gallon duece and a half.

I still need a small tanker at station 2. Even if I had no issues with water, I would need it to satisfy ISO.

It is not our job to only put out fires, and provide education. I also am tasked to reduce my patrons fire insurance rates - via ISO. We run shuttles with the smaller tankers, and use the 5k tankers for nurse cows to keep things topped off.

[MemphisE34a]

Water is free, at least around here.

[Bones42]

We draft from the ocean. That's a pretty big tank.

[mitchkrat]

Need same size tankers in a shuttle

We have a 2000 gallon tanker/tender and a 2500 gallon pumper/tanker/tender. Most of our neighbors are in the 2000-3000 gallon range and shuttle seem to work the best when everyone has similar sized tankers. The smaller tankers (2000 gallon) are mostly on single axles so they are more manuverable but as most departments replace their tankers/tenders/trucks with big tank, they are opting to add side dumps which helps with the tandums.

One depratment has a 5000 gallon semi and it usually is used for one load because it misses up the shuttle and takes up a large amount of realestate.

Last couple of working sructure fires we have had in our district - we have had average of 6 tankers in the shuttle and never came close to being low on water. Most of the mutual aid is 9-15 miles away. Average distance to fill site was 6 miles one way.

[Rescue101]

Mcaldwell,now you have me confused.Since when can't you boost a sprinkler or augment a conventional pump with a Cafs pump? Most of the Cafs units I've seen are a standard fire pump with a compressor driven off the back and a proportioning unit.When the compressor quits or you shut it off,you still have a standard fire pump with a proportioner.30 gal of concentrate at .02-.03 will go a long way on a barn or hay fire.We run big tanks,we always have and our system is set up for them.Don't care for smaller tanks but we don't use them anyway. T.C.

[RFDACM02]

One depratment has a 5000 gallon semi and it usually is used for one load because it misses up the shuttle and takes up a large amount of realestate.

We've had similar experiences. When one or two tankers are much larger or smaller they mes up the dump times, fill times and some travel times. Its easy to screw up the rhythm putting these in. The issues can largely be overcome with a well trained water supply officer with some command presence.