Fairfax County VA

[drfeelgood]

There are two new Rescues marked 411 and 414 but I could be wrong. I do like the red sign boards on the new Towers.

[SrFireOfficial]

A little birdie emailed me a .pdf of the new Fairfax County tiller CAD drawing.  Private me and I will share, too large to post here.

[Guest]

There are two new Rescues marked 411 and 414 but I could be wrong. I do like the red sign boards on the new Towers.

The rescues look good.  Pierce has a photo of them on their Flickr account:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/piercemfg/10139694933/

 

Does anyone know when they expect to have the new rescues delivered/in-service?

[johndanger]

The rescues look good.  Pierce has a photo of them on their Flickr account:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/piercemfg/10139694933/

 

Way better with those mirrors.

[Juice]

 

Way better with those mirrors.

 

But still missing those spinny things on the front

[firemag]

They should have been delivered by now. They were at the AES shop in Manassas two weeks ago.

[drfeelgood]

They have been sitting at North App. shop for the past 2 weeks

[Engine504Driver]

A blast from the past - this Clark. O. Martin, Jr. (RIP) photo was taken in the 80's of the Fairfax County, Virginia Fire and Rescue Department's original Hazardous Materials Response Team.  The team was comprised of the centrally-located (at Fire Station 34 in Oakton) HazMat unit and the 3 "Satellite" heavy rescues (located at Fire Station 1/ McLean, Fire Station 11 / Penn Daw, and Fire Station 26 / Edsall Road).  A HazMat response had a variety of support and incident management apparatus dispatched, along with HazMat 34 and one of the "Satellite" rescues, depending on the geographical location of the incident in Fairfax County.

 

This photo was taken at Fairfax County's Academy, during what was likely one of the numerous "in-service" hazardous materials refresher/training sessions.  During these sessions, units would relocate to the academy, staying in service for calls as needed.  Other heavy rescues were transferred throughout the county for coverage.

 

From left to right:

 

Haz Mat 34 (Oakton station) - a 1963 GMC / Reading, 200gpm/200gwt - this unit was originally purchased by the Mount Vernon VFD as Rescue Squad 9.  After leaving Station 9, this unit became a well-travelled reserve rescue throughout Fairfax, eventually ending up as the "first" Haz Mat 34.  It was replaced in 1986 and sold to Amissville, VA.

 

Rescue Squad 11 (Penn Daw station) - a 1980 Ford L / 3-D Metals, 250gpm/100gwt - this unit was replaced in 1986, sent to the Fairfax County Apparatus Shops and had significant body work done and then became Haz Mat 34.

 

Rescue Squad 1 (McLean station) - 1979 GMC Brigadier / Saulsbury, 250gpm/200gwt - this unit was sold to The Plains, VA in 1990 and replaced with a Pierce Lance heavy rescue.

 

Rescue Squad 26 (Edsall Road station) - 1975 Chevrolet / Reading - this unit was replaced in 1984 with a Ford C / Emergency-One heavy rescue and the Chevrolet was transferred to become Rescue Squad 11.

 

Special thanks to Mike Sanders for the detailed apparatus info.

[SrFireOfficial]

From the Fire Chief's "2014 Focus and Priorities" email recently shared with me....

 

<p style="margin-left:40px;">Apparatus -

We have a number of new apparatus that will be arriving in 2014. Here are the units scheduled to come in during 2014!

Tiller Trucks (1 maybe 2 in 2014) - We anticipate one to arrive in late August and hopefully one before the end of the year or shortly thereafter.

Academy Pumpers (2)
Field Pumpers (3)
Tower (1)
Tower (1) Franconia (I suspect this is a Franconia VFD purchase)
Rescue (2)

[drfeelgood]

From the Fire Chief's "2014 Focus and Priorities" email recently shared with me....

 

<p style="margin-left:40px;">Apparatus -

We have a number of new apparatus that will be arriving in 2014. Here are the units scheduled to come in during 2014!

Tiller Trucks (1 maybe 2 in 2014) - We anticipate one to arrive in late August and hopefully one before the end of the year or shortly thereafter.

Academy Pumpers (2)
Field Pumpers (3)
Tower (1)
Tower (1) Franconia (I suspect this is a Franconia VFD purchase)
Rescue (2)

From my sources Tower 5 will be a County rig

[Engine410kid]

From my sources Tower 5 will be a County rig

Tower 5 will be a Franconia/County partnership, the split I heard was Franconia 51%, County 49% but who knows what the exact number is! All the rumor mill knows is that Franconia is paying more, and the tower will be in their paint scheme. Also due to the size of the newer Pierce towers the bay for the tower will be worked on to raise the clearance of the door, or possibly put in bi-folds. 

[SrFireOfficial]

Tower 5 will be a Franconia/County partnership, the split I heard was Franconia 51%, County 49% but who knows what the exact number is! All the rumor mill knows is that Franconia is paying more, and the tower will be in their paint scheme. Also due to the size of the newer pierce towers the bay for the tower will be worked on to raise the clearance of the door, or possibly put in bi-folds. 

My intel confirms the partnership and the issue with the bay size.

[lawrencewhite111]

So I heard Tower 408 was getting the other 100' Rear Mount Velocity Tower. Is there any truth to the fact that the New Tower will not fit into Annandale's Station? Lastly with Tower 424 and 430 getting new Rigs will the older ones become Reserves or will the Pierce Mid Mount be sold?

[drfeelgood]

So I heard Tower 408 was getting the other 100' Rear Mount Velocity Tower. Is there any truth to the fact that the New Tower will not fit into Annandale's Station? Lastly with Tower 424 and 430 getting new Rigs will the older ones become Reserves or will the Pierce Mid Mount be sold?

I understand the MM's will be sold

[stokess]

So I heard Tower 408 was getting the other 100' Rear Mount Velocity Tower. Is there any truth to the fact that the New Tower will not fit into Annandale's Station? Lastly with Tower 424 and 430 getting new Rigs will the older ones become Reserves or will the Pierce Mid Mount be sold?

 

My understanding is the MM's are to be sold, dunno about TL424 and yes there is an issue with the bay at 8 and the new Pierce towers.  Last I knew there was a deal being cut between the volunteers and the county to raise the door. Not sure what the structural issues are with that, one report was it could be easy or very hard.  

[lawrencewhite111]

Anyone know what the current fleet of Reserve Trucks is? I know they had ex Truck 411,425, 429 which were are all Pierce aerials and ex Tower 401 and Tower 436 both Eone Towers. I assume once Tower 424 enters service there Eone will join the Reserve fleet as well. Any help is appreciated

[alex3610]

Understand, I got nothing against a tiller ladder truck, in fact, I considered it a religious experience to watch Truck 9 swing out onto U Street with the Q pegged and the tillerman dragging the trailer a little bit in the other lane as they responded on box alarm in their own 4th Battalion.  After over 20 years of rear mount aerials being used in Fairfax County, I fail to understand the justification for their purchase.  Please send me a private message with the details of how the TDA out performs the current rear-mount spec. 

 

For a size check on a Pierce TDA, check out one of the latest pics by Terry Dawson ... 

 

http://www.firepics.net/groupboards/inde...22&page=84

 

Rest assured, if Fairfax County buys them they will be at least this big if not bigger, the tiller might as well have blinders on because all he or she will be able to see is a bunch of ladder and not the cab.   Bigger stopped being better a while ago, look at how much discussion there was on the "ideal" sized Pierce Arrow XT's that ACFD purchased when a FXCO Velocity was benchmarked against them.  And, I think dollar for dollar, I could get four more rear-mount aerials instead of three TDA's.  

 

There are some functionally sized tillers being sold that do work in dense urban areas; LAFD operates nothing but TDA's and check out the latest KME TDA's being delivered to Atlanta (GA) as well as the Seagraves being operated by DCFD.  Those particular Seagraves "won't work" in Fairfax County because the tip load is not heavy enough for the almost daily stokes basket operations (insert snarky laugh) that occur within the Kingdom of Fairfax County and KME cannot meet the section (not sure if it's still there) of the purchase contract which stipulates "vendor must have authorized dealer within 25 miles of Fairfax County"  

 

Oh, and when the TDA's go in for service or repair what will they be replaced with from the reserve fleet?  A rear mount.

 

Really, if anybody has the "Tiler Justification Packet", send it to me.  Please.

 

The 250 # tipload TDA's won't work in Fairfax for a legitmate reason as well.  In a city, the rig is usually positioned very close to the building, creating steep angles and relatively short extension lengths.  In a suburban environment like Fairfax, I would imagine the ladder gets used at max. extension at very low angles at your typical garden apartment fires, McMansions with large set backs, etc., leading you to run into your actual tip load.  DC probably has plenty of headroom left load wise in most situations they operate in.

[Fire Escape]

Baltimore County just put three TDAs in service 500lb tip load and there pretty small. The FD wanted them modeled after a 20 yo Seagrave.

[SrFireOfficial]

Baltimore County just put three TDAs in service 500lb tip load and there pretty small. The FD wanted them modeled after a 20 yo Seagrave.

 

I'm not discounting what you are saying here, but rest comfortably assured; having been a resident of Baltimore County with more than just a passing knowledge of their apparatus procurement history and an employee of Fairfax County Fire and Rescue, Fairfax County will not follow in Baltimore County's footsteps.  

 

Just remember, Fairfax County needs tiller ladder trucks to negotiate all those tight narrow city streets and alleys plaguing the placement of its current fleet of ladder trucks.

[SrFireOfficial]

And coming soon to 1455 Laughlin Avenue in beautiful downtown McLean....