5 August 2009

New tankers for jetsetting firefighters

| johnboy
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Simon Corbell is celebrating the roll out of eight shiny new fire tankers:

    Mr Corbell said the eight new medium tankers had been built at a cost of $146,000 each with a total investment of approximately $1.17 million dollars,” he said.

    “The state-of-the-art new vehicles have been funded by the ACT Government as part of the ACT Emergency Services Agency Fleet Replacement Program and will further enhance our bushfire fighting capability in the ACT and support to other emergencies ahead of the 2009/2010 bushfire season.”

    The new vehicles will be distributed to Guises Creek, Gungahlin, Hall, Molonglo, Parks, Southern, Rivers and Tidbinbilla ACT RFS brigades.

And there’s even tech details for the gear nerds:

    “The new medium ACT RFS firefighting tankers come complete with foam inducted pumps, on a four-wheel drive, 5 speed manual Isuzu NPS 300 single cabin chassis and can carry 1550 litres of water,” he said.

    “They are fitted with crew protection sprays to improve safety and boom sprays for grassland fire fighting. They can carry additional equipment, not capable of being carried on the smaller light units they are replacing due to limited space and weight restrictions.

    “The medium tankers can fit three fire fighters as opposed to two in the light units which adds another dimension to the ACT RFS fire fighting capability.

And apparently there are another eight heavy tankers on the way!

In other firey news, Mr Stanhope has announced that three lucky firefighters who work in TAMS are off to Canada to see how they do things over there, and to help out:

    Mr Stanhope said the fire fighters would form part of a 30-strong contingent from Australia and New Zealand.

    The fire fighters – Scott Farquhar, Simon Bretherton and Simon Butt – work within the Department of Territory and Municipal Services.

Apparently Scott Farquhar also went to the US last year for the California fires.

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And because I just had to know, I googled the question of why some trucks are red…

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090403214314AAdZjAp

“The most widely-accepted reason that fire engines are painted red dates back to the 1800s — a time when there was a lot of competition between the fire brigades of neighboring cities and towns. The firefighters of each brigade took great pride in their pump. Each brigade wanted their rig stand out by being the cleanest, having the most brass, or being a regal color. Because red was the most expensive color, that’s what color most crews chose to paint the pump.”

And why yellow is better-

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/1997-05/HFaE-FTCI-010597.php

“Which Color Is Safest?

Recently, DuPont researcher Dr. David H. Alman measured chroma and reflectance of DuPont paints typically used in the transportation industry; his studies were conducted under controlled lighting representing daytime and nighttime illumination. Lime-yellow (reflectance peaking near 550 nm wavelength) was shown to have the “best fit” for the sensitivity curve of human photopic (daylight) vision. Thus, the daytime and nighttime eye response to lime-yellow is strong, enabling more rapid reaction. Because lime-yellow is also an intense color, it is easily distinguished from rural and urban backgrounds (Allen, 1970). These factors, combined with reflectance approaching white, make lime-yellow a prime candidate for the safest color for fire apparatus.”

I remember the question being asked when I was a young lad; we were told that yellow is more visible in general, especially for those with partial blindness.

Friska said :

Yellow are more visible at night.

That may be so, but how is its visibility in a bushfire?

p1 said :

Looks nice. Interesting that both the work lights are pointing square to the front.

They do swivel around.

Yellow are more visible at night.

Yeah, but red ones go faster 🙂

Looks nice. Interesting that both the work lights are pointing square to the front. Now that’s what I call attention to detail. 🙂

Yellow are more visible at night.

I was told it had to do with visibility.
Anyway the back of Rivers 30 can be found at
http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii421/JulianHamstead/ACT%20Rural%20Fire%20Service/RIV30.jpg

On teh subject of fire brigade vehicles, can someone explain to me why we don’t have Red Firetrucks like um well everyone else?? Sorry this may have come up before but it has always bothered me and now my kids are asking me why?

JB, you appear to have pasted the intro spiel twice, and missed out on the tech details…

Lucky ACT, everyone love new toys!

I was there today (as a member of Rivers where the presentation was held). I’ll post a picture of the rear of the vechiles for those that are interested. These vechiles replace old Toyota Landcruiser Light Tankers.

These new vechiles are longer & better equipped.

The new heavy tankers will be replacing some vechiles that are like 20 years old. If you can see the hint of yellow in the shed behind the new tankers, that tanker was an ex-Parks Tanker

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