Get off that GAS.....

Due to the hi-cost of gas now days, some FD's are changing they way they respond to calls. Some dont leave the station unless theres a call. Some FD's are not doing medical calls. And some have cut back on the # of units they roll on alarms.

How has the hi-cost of fuel effected your FD's, and has your dept had to cut back any to pay for fuel......

[dmleblanc]

No effect here....we allotted more of our budget for fuel this year than previously, but we have not curtailed our driving...in fact, calls are up, so we're probably driving more miles than we have before, if anything....

[chadf652]

When you become a firefighter do you need your CDL License to drive the Firetrucks??? thanks

-Chad-

[NYSmokey]

We purchase our fuel from the school district. They buy it on state bid so we end up saving a ton of money. I would say that this year we are more aware about the cost of letting the apparatus idle for long periods of time. So far it hasn't had any negative effect on our responses.

In New York State, you do not need a CDL to drive any of the apparatus but it is definitely a positive if you have one already.

[Dalmatian190]

Any citation of which departments have altered their response policies???

Sorry, but a few bucks worth of fuel is a really weak excuse for things like dropping response to medical calls -- you probably save more in oxygen and medical disposables then you do in fuel.

Asking people to be cognizant and not doing as much "joy riding" driver training / truck checks, or leaving trucks idling while washing, and other non-operational cost trimming I can see.

Further, probably the most common fiscal year starts July 1, so hopefully you're on the new budget with the higher fuel costs built in already.

[Greenacres2]

In the world of guitars, GAS has long been an acronym for Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Even at $3.00, gasoline is cheaper than guitars. Not as much fun to play with, but cheaper.

earl (rhythm-less, but full of GAS)

[NYSmokey]

earl (rhythm-less, but full of GAS)

Too much information!

[RyanEMVFD]

In Texas, if I recall correctly, you only need a CDL if the fire truck weighs over a certain amount.

We haven't changed anything here. We just try to use the fuel card that gives us a discount on the bill.

[38ffems]

No CDL to drive here, i drive an engine and a heavy rescue and those are the only trucks that size I have ever driven. We do have to go through a training program though and test out before we can drive the vehicle to calls. I have a question, have any departments used or experimented with biodiesel? The search and rescue team I run have thrown around the idea that if we end up getting a vehicle we are going to try to get a diesel vehicle and run biodiesel in it. This is a university team and the school is really enviromentally friendly so it will also assist us with getting the money to buy the vehicle.

[NYSmokey]

Where would you get the biodiesel from? I saw a show on one of the discovery channels about it. The guy made it in his barn. They said that the exhaust smelled like the mexican restaurant they got the grease from. We all know that there is no shortage of fast food grease in this country!

[Dalmatian190]

You'll get a slight mileage drop, about 10% for B100 v. No. 1 Diesel. That's probably not a big concern for search & rescue work...if you had a forestry rig on an extended operation that's a bigger issue. It's seldom you'll see a Class A pumper going for 10 hours plus...but it does happen from time to time in my area that fuel trucks have to be called in, and B100 gives you that much less of a safety margin.

My biggest concern which might be a manageable one is cold weather performance. Would suck to park the truck for 12 hours on a zero degree day and have it gel up on you.

B20 you shouldn't see a noticeable mileage reduction, nor gelling.

Personally, I wouldn't run B100 in an emergency vehicle until we get another 5 or 10 years of experience under the belt and have worked out any potential problems to the point where John Doe off the street really doesn't have to think about it.

[Dalmatian190]

Where would you get the biodiesel from?

http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodi...lfuelingsites/

There are starting to be petroleum distributors around the country that will blend it for customers / retailers.

They're using predominantly Biodiesel made from virgin oils, not the recycled restaurant stuff.

Bio can't fully replace dino petroleum supplies, at least not without using far too much land far too intensively...but they can make a big contribution and help stabilize prices -- figure we're producing 35% of our own oil today (yes folks, one of the world's biggest oil producers...is the U.S.), if you can add another 20% from alcohol & biodiesel that brings us up to 55% domestically produced & controlled.

If on top of that you implement conservation & efficiency measures long term to reduce consumption by 10-20% now you're talking about a major swing -- if we replaced 20% of today's total consumption with bio fuels and reduced overall consumption by 20%...we'd be looking at 69% of our fuel needs being generated domestically. Might take 10 years to get there, but it's certainly not impractical or undoable.

[Bones42]

I'll agree. I know of no one that has modified their responses due to fuel costs.

[Lieutenant516]

When you become a firefighter do you need your CDL License to drive the Firetrucks??? thanks

-Chad-

Well I believe that in NJ for regular firetrucks, no CDL is required. Just have to be 18. Now if you have a tractor tanker. You are allowed to drive it to a firecall and back without a CDL, but if you are doing something that is non-emergency, like taking it to a shop or parade, you must have a CDL.

EDIT:

Oh and about the fuel thing, our city pays for our gas, so we can careless.

[ullrichk]

We have not curtailed any driving due to fuel prices. We used to keep the engines in the house all the time and just get them out for calls, but that went out with the last Chief. I don't have any empirical evidence to back this up, but it seems like we're having fewer mechanical problems with the increased use (going to the store, out buying supplies, etc.)

We have been running biodiesel with no ill effects for at least seven years. Our supplier sells B2 to B20 depending on weather and other factors. For a good tutorial on biodiesel - including homebrew bio from waste cooking oil - look it up on wikipedia. There are some off-site links there that are good as well.

As a side note, pay attention to the homebrew stuff because it's something you might bump into on a garage fire sometime. I'm not suggesting we all become experts, BTW, just a matter of awareness.