Talk:Fire apparatus

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Fire Engines are different than Fire Trucks and perform very different tasks during an attack on a fire, but that is not commonly known. In my update to this article I tried to define the Engine and Truck, and the hybrid Quint, but wonder if they should be broken off into their own articles, or are they similar enough in design and function?

I think "engine" and "truck" could use their own articles, where an "engine" is any apparatus that has a pump (i.e., the "engine") and "fire truck" is anything else. Lupinelawyer 22:43, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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How about including a list of famous fires in the 'see also' section? Since fire trucks/engines do put out fires, it seems like a good idea to include the fires make make the men and equpment legendary. TomStar81 02:28, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As of June 03 there is List of historic fires, with an Oct 03 List of famous fires redirect; and June 04 Category:Historic fires. I'll snap a link into the article today, and also add Category:Firefighting to that historical article. Lupinelawyer 22:43, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 general text 2 tiller truck 3 Images 4 Airport 5 Format, images 6 All over the world 7 Fire truck design 8 Fire tender? 9 Links 10 Images (again) 11 vandalism 12 Felines 13 Proposed changes to this article

[edit] general text

Dear fellows, I added few general sentences on water tenders, airport crash tenders, and mentioned some other special type of vehicles. I also added some text on vehicles used on rough terrains, snow - and mentioned other solutions to carry special materials like hookloaders, and even trailers. The trailers, however, are not quite fire apparata, but are low-cost solutions in some parts of the world. Please comment (or even edit!) if you find this kind of information as inappropriate under the headline "Fire apparatus". I'd like to hear your opinion how we could shortly describe various kind of vehicle solutions in fire brigades all over the world - without rambling or expanding this article too much. I'm not quite sure whether I succeeded in my previous edition; I'll be just happy if someone shortens my (typically) wide text to include only the most useful part of it... Pöllö 17:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tiller truck

Anybody in the know want to talk about a "tiller truck"?

What would you like to know? A tiller truck is a tractor-trailer, aerial ladder with a separately steerable set of rear wheels, which are steered at a tiller position by a tillerman. This permits the truck to more easily make sharp turns (as exiting the firehouse, or in narrow city streets with traffic). See the article on Turntable ladder and its external ref. Lupinelawyer 22:43, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What about merging that article into this one? Badger151 19:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I'm sorry, but there are WAY too many images on this page. I don't mind alot of visual information, but as they are now they're really causing problems with formatting (Look at the table of contents for a good example). What are the recommended actions when this happens? Thanx 68.39.174.150 00:27, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, if the images are good and the only issues is formatting it may be time to create a page on the wikimedia commons and place uneeded pictures there. Some articles, like USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) have links like this. TomStar81 04:51, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Commons:Fire engine? --Saperaud 14:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned up the start by leaving only one photo there. The others are now in a <gallery> at the bottom of the article. I've come across these kind of arrangements in some articles occasionally, and it seems pretty practical to me. Certainly a lot better than the original cluttered mess. --Jonik 18:47, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

If even more images are added, it should be nice to use the gallery that Jonik has created. I guess that there are many people willing to add "MY VERY OWN FIRETRUCK" to page just to see it on this page. Therefore, would be nice, if the images added contain some special and useful features, these features can be seen in the images, and there is some additional information. Otherwise, Fire Engines and Trucks & various other equipment should get pages of their own, Trucks at one page, Engines at another. Just to avoid a mess and hundress of images with no further reason. --Pöllö 13:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Transferred new poor pictures in the text to the gallery. -- the bird 11:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Airport

Anyone got any info on the specialized apparatus used at airports? I don't have any questions myself, but it seems to me that the equipment is different enough to warrant discussion; it's just beyond my area of expertise. Badger151 18:04, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The short answer is that airports use crashtenders - which basically is a large water tender with lots of foam and a very powerful water cannon. Furthermore the requirements for acceleration and manoeuvrability are more strict than for non-airport use. Try to imagine a plane with 200 passengers and filled to the brink with jet fuel crashing.. Usually the vehicles must not use more than about 5 minutes to reach the crash site - therefore airports often have more than fire station. --|EPO| 21:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Format, images

I've reformatted the page to make it easier to read, but there are too many images to really do a good job. I think that it's time for some of the extra images to be moved to a page on the commons. Then, we can post as many images as we want, since we're all fond of our equipment (and rightly so). Unless anyone comes up with a reason not to do so, I'd like to move some of the darker/less clear images, particularly those of departments with more than one piece of equipment pictured. Specifically, I'm thinking of moving Truck 5 from Chico, CA (Chico's Engine 4 is a good photo, but Engine 5 is dark) Hong Kong's ALP (which looks similar to their Jackless Snorkel, though is a bit dim) and their Dennis Sabre, which shows a lot of windshield and front end, but very litle of the personality of the truck (or is it an engine? the angle of the photo makes this unclear).

Also, the picture of the apparatus from Lausanne (now in the top right of the page) looks to me to be a truck, not an engine. Since the page specifically indicates that the two terms have different meanings, this is a bit confusing. Is the terminology different in Switzerland? If no one objects, I'll be changing the caption over in a week or so. Badger151 04:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll add a picture and some information on a airport fire engine. Pöllö 17:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] All over the world

The sections on equipment from various places, currently only Germany and Hong Kong, needs to get merged to articles about those departments and this section renamed. Each section is as long as the rest of the article and you're inviting hundreds of other sections for every unique fire jurisdiction "around the world". SchmuckyTheCat 15:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

• Works for me. How do we go about doing that? Badger151 19:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fire truck design

Anybody know anything about fire truck design? I know a little about the difference between cab-over and conventional cabs, but not much. A discussion on the issues of open cabs, crew cabs, and why firefighters are no longer (in the US, at least) allowed to ride on the back of the truck could be interesting. Also, the values of placing the mount for an aerial in the middle of the truck or at its end could be discussed, as could a comparison of the valuse of ladder vs snorkel vs tower.

I miss a discussion about the differences between American and European fire engines, they often look completly different. To europeans US vehicles look like they come from the seventies or so, is there any reason for the US to have such "old-fashiond" engines? If someone knew this, it would be interesting to read.

Not sure about the real reason, but I'd like to give a guess. A European vehicle is normally built on a standard truck chassis. I believe it's partly tradition (not an explanation) and partly due to the cause that these are already available from the factory. So when the first motorized fire trucks were to be built they simply chosen an existing chassis. --|EPO| 21:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fire tender?

Fire tender redirects here but it is not mentioned in the text... is a fire engine, fire truck, water tender or something else? Pretzelpaws 19:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links

Links to Military Fire Truck and Brush Truck do not work, articles don't exist? Would be reasonable to write the articles first, then add the links? Or another kind of problem with the links? I will remove the non-working links.

[edit] Images (again)

Once again, the page is out of control with a ton of images being placed in and among the article itself. It seems there is no happy medium, and some are determined to keep adding more and more images to the main body of the article. Therefore, I've moved EVERY image to the gallery and I'll move any new ones that are placed in the main article from now on. Chris 05:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

IMHO1: you did bad work. Now the article is just plain and dry text. Images helped the reader to get an idea on what apparatus is a telescopic aerial etc. Now the link between the text and pictures are disconnected. It's ok to destroy new pictures additioned between the text, but some pictures contained relevant and good information. Somebody has spent some time collecting and writing it... Now this information is messed and hidden somewhere in the gallery.

IMHO2: we could destroy the picture gallery and most of the pictures, because they don't give any further information. Somebody just wants to see his truck or engine in wikipedia. Instead of a wild gallery there could be a wish, that pictures of their own equipment can be added to other internet sites than wikipedia. The idea of this wikipedia article is to be an ARTICLE. Not a wild gallery of thousands of i-want-my-picture-to-the-net -pictures. - the bird

Changed the place of pictures originally in the article to be the first ones in the gallery. Yeah, it's childish to change the places of the pics, but I guess that the article was written by persons who added those pictures. Sad that other persons added a lot of pics and messed the article. - me myself and i, 11th November 2006

[edit] vandalism

The page was destroyed on January 23rd, 2007 by an IP-address 63.110.146.129, which is registered to Calvert Hall College High School and may be shared by multiple users. (Notice: Comments left on this page may be received by other users of this IP and appear to be irrelevant. Caution should be used when blocking this IP or reverting its contributions without checking.) I restored the page. Pöllö 20:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Felines

Hello are there any firetrucks that are specificlly meant for cats, I mean in place of a fire dalmation? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.34.170.75 (talk)

In regards to your ridiculous question, the answer is no. The only place for cats in the fire service is up a tree. --Daysleeper47 14:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed changes to this article

Looking at a number of articles related to fire apparatus, there are many problems which are apparant to me. I would like some discussion to occur so maybe we can obtain concensus on what, if anything, we can do.

First, I propose a merger of all fire apparatus articles into one article, Fire apparatus. Sections in this article related to apparatus types would be left as is, but the seperate articles for Fire chief's vehicle, Heavy rescue vehicle, Airport crash tender, Water tender, and Wildland fire engine would be added to this article. The current section on history would be spun off into its own article. If one particular section was large enough, it could be spun off, but I don't think any of these are large enough.

Also, there is naming problems where US naming conventions take precedent over UK naming conventions. For instance, Water tender is, I imagine, a UK term, while in the US we use Tanker. Any ideas on how we can work this out?

Please leave your comments here! --Daysleeper47 14:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally I do not support the gathering of the various articles into this one. I would prefer this article to shortly describe units and then let the reader continue his/her reading in a main article on the subject.

I am afraid this article will become too big and perhaps leading to somewhat difficulty in getting a clear overview on selected topics. --|EPO| 18:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that is fine, but this article should be retooled to perhaps include small paragraphs and a {{main|***}} tag to lead to another article. I do think the topic of article titles remains a concern. --Daysleeper47 19:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Some of the articles on units could perhaps be included in a larger article describing the concept/idea behind. This would make a main article larger and leave smaller stubs behind. E.g. on "my" Danish ladder article I have choosen to describe the turntable ladder in the first part and further down explain the differences regarding similar vehicles.

As for the title of this article it indicates a describtion of the different kind of tools used by fire departmens in carrying out their jobs. This should include vehicles, techniques, personal equipment etc. --|EPO| 19:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The article will be too large, if all fire units are under one title. In my opinion, the aerials should have an article of their own, an engine an article of their own. If there are various kind of units "mixtured", then mention them under an existing article or write a new one...

If there are various names in the UK and in the USA for fire apparata, I suggest that let the first name be. If there exist an article for a water tender, then simple let it be a water tender. In the water tender article it can be shortly described that in the States a water tender is called as a tanker. If somebody searches for a tanker, redirect the tanker page to the water tender page. It's total madness to translate all the terms to US ones or to UK ones. Simply because there are a lot of other countries than the US or the UK. Whoever was the first, was the first. Respect it, accept it. It's really childish to convert European names to US ones or opposite, just because "I don't understand that there is a world outside my country" -attitude. -- the bird 11:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)