From my point of view being a fire fighter for 6 years i reckon that the new 34 appliances should be issued to the brigades who are very busy with RCR and industrial fires and those brigades who are less activegiven refurbished appliances
However the only setbacks with these new 34 appliances is the OHS&W risk involved becasue when it comes to attacking a grass fire the crew have to get out of the crew cab and attack it, should a burn over occur the crew are more likely to sustain ankle and leg injuries while scrambling into the crew cab
In my opinion the tradional 34 appliances e.g. open back and side door appliances are much better despite not having sprinkler systems as bthe crews can hop on the truck quickly and put out a running grass fire safely without getting off the back
From my point of view being a fire fighter for 6 years i reckon that the new 34 appliances should be issued to the brigades who are very busy with RCR and industrial fires
Im sorry mate, but when you have spent those 6 years in a brigade doing 300 + calls a year, with anything up to 30 Structure Fires, any where up to 40 odd MVA's (not all requiring rescue).. 40 private alarms etc, I think you would understand why these brigades would need Urban Pumpers over a Rural 34.. I don't know if you are familiar with boosting either, but this also comes into play with responses for such brigades...& if you mentioned the comment I quoted above to members of those brigades, they would probably laugh...
The idea of running a 34 with rescue for a very rural brigade may work well when u have all of 10 calls a year, but when the work load is at the opposite end of the scale, and operationally you are attending a whole different range of jobs, its throws things into a different perspective, and quite simply a rural 34 won't cut it for some of these brigades.
However I understand your experience may be limited to a more rural environment and not the sutuations I have explained.
