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Emergency vehicles should be marked as such. This includes lights and sirens.

Evan at low speeds, wouldn’t tenders still need to break interactions or clear slow moving traffic at fire scenes?

Our 50-passanger (Sheriff’s) prisoner busses have lights & sirens. During Firestorm in 2003 we needed and used every vehicle that the department had available, of which about half were unmarked. Afterwards we had many discussions about even adding plug-in rotating amber and spotlights to our unmarked fleet. It’s not the first time that we have had to press unmarked vehicles into emergency service.

San Diego Fire Rescue had plenty of personnel respond but not nearly enough vehicles and apparatus. Every vehicle that was running was rushed into service.

Regardless of the vehicle’s intended use (unless it is going to be used in investigators or arson surveillance) it should carry emergency equipment and have lights, siren and markings.

tsmith1 said:

Emergency vehicles should be marked as such. This includes lights and sirens.

Amen.

All the ones I have read about involved experienced, older drivers, heading to a scene. Don't think the articles elaborated on whether or not they were running code. All of them involved either running out of a curve due to speed, or water sloshing and causing loss of control. Tankers were not meant to speed. Granted there are many departments without water supply, and they need the water asap, but all you can do is call mutual aid, and get there as best as you can. I can imagine there may have been excited radio traffic, hollering for the water to get there, but that should not alter the driving habits and the ability to maintain control of the truck. There may also be an issue of getting pumped having the siren going. You have to be mature, and have years of experience sometimes, before you overcome the siren and tune it out and drive as you should. We can only hope that with all the losses that have happened, departments are stepping up their SOG's and driver testing. Very few departments have ongoing testing either. Most require you to be checked out as safe and able to drive and operate the vehicle, and then never revisit or retest again.

This year, we finally have a CE requirement for our A.O.'s. It is only 12 hours, but it is a start.

Did anyone read about the LODD in Pennsylvania I think, where a volunteer firefighter took a tender to a fire WITHOUT authorization to do so, and without any training in driving that apparatus - it seems he knew the people whose home was on fire, and he wanted to help...but he never made it there. I'm not sure if he was responding code, but based on the FIRST irrational decision he made, I'd imagine he wasn't taking it easy down the road...so sad.

Firefighter 1640, I think you may have the best point yet. IT IS NOT OUR EMERGENCY!!!!! We must always remember this. Stop and think will usually help us avoid problems.

We had a Peterbuilt 15speed long haul gas tanker converted into a tender. It was a full size commerical vehicle W 5,000 gallons of H20. I would turn on the lights and sirens untill I was out of sight of the station then shut it down untill I got to the scene.

That thing WAS NOT a sports car. I heard many horror stories involving it and am so thankfull no one was hurt or killed!!!!

it seem that just about everyone tends to forget everything they were tought in EVD and Driver Ops class. Get their in a safe and reasonable mannor. everyone comes home alive.

It all comes down to qualified operators and drivers training.

At this point, it sounds more to me like the NFPA needs to mandate the construction of the vehicle as much as driver training. I know there are departments that cant afford much, and build trucks. But I dont think it would cost much to open up that tank and put appropriate baffling inside it, nor would i cost much to have appropriate brakes and tires deemed safe for the load. But the bottom line is it still comes down to the driver. Tankers should be driven like a gas truck. I see them responding in rural areas occassionally, and they will not only not be running code, but will drive on the shoulder or right lane since they cant safely achieve the speed limit. I understand things happen, like running off the edge of the road, or sloshing, but they shouldn't, and it is mostly up to the driver to get there safely. Lights and sirens have nothing to do with it for the most part, and they will be needed at times and should be on the truck.

Also, we have a 1000 gallon tank on our engine, but it also has a 1250 gpm pump. The deck gun can empty the truck in less than a minute, and a couple of 1 3/4 lines can drain it in a couple of minutes.

We have them on ours

I think that mostly every one has really hit the nail on the head with this one. Appropriate driver training, relevant SOG's, proper equipment, and common sense.

Let's face it, not every one is fit to be a driver, it's up to the department heads(Chief's and Captains) to sit down and set up a minimum amount of class room and road training, then implement a driver training program. As they're training, before they're allowed to run Emergency to a call, the driver trainers/officers should be getting a feel for how that person is behind the wheel of a large emergency vehicle. If they're rubbing curbs or dropping of the road maybe they're not quite ready to drive on their own yet...

Not every apparatus has to run to a scene Emergency with lights and sirens. I forget off the top of my head what the percentage of Fire Apparatus accidents while running lights and sirens is... but I do know that most  accidents do occur while lights and sirens are being ran. Many fire apparatus drivers forget that they may know what they're doing but when you come up in a huge fire engine with lights and sirens on people become like a deer in headlights and do stupid things. My department recently changed our procedures for responding to certain types of calls, with many calls only the first in Engine needs to be running lights and sirens, Odor Investigations, CO alarms with no illness, ect. I don't like it but it makes sense, if you get there and it truly is an emergency where you need other people there NOW you can bump them up to Priority One. Alot of FF/EMT's don't realize that... well... people are dumb, you still need to obey traffic laws, stop at intersections and make sure you have control(most accidents in fire apparatus occur in intersections!!!), slow down at advisories for sharp turns and steep hills, for God's sake slow down in school zones.

Yes you should have the proper equipment with the proper Tranny, Baffling systems, and brakes. Some financially binding departments don't, it's a scary thought but some times you just have to do your best(which brings me to another topic that I wont rant about in here because it's way off subject). In all honesty your "best" wont hold up in court, but in order to prevent from ending up in court you need Competent drivers with common sense and the correct training on your apparatus. If you know that you're tanker/engine isn't baffled then you shouldn't be driving over a certain speed. Period. You know that when you think you're stopped that water is going to slosh forward and you're going to go at least 2 more feet, or when you go around that bend it's going to be hard as hell to keep it on the road. Proper training and preemptive thinking is what's going to help protect you and every one around you.

I'm sorry that this is so long winded but if there's one thing I am all about it's safety. This past spring I experienced two LODD's, one Medical in my department, and another a catastrophic failure on a piece of equipment. Both of these were essentially unpreventable by the FF's on the scene and the members that had been using equipment prior to both of these fires. I'll tell you it hurts like hell to loose a brother. But to loose a brother because of Negligence behind the wheel of an apparatus is disgusting, that is a totally preventable death.

That got alittle off topic but remember, "The garbage man doesn't get excited when he rounds the corner and there's garbage out on the street, so you shouldn't get excited when a house is on fire" It's your job.