
The Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office (OSFM) has taken delivery of 13 out of 26 contracted Rosenbauer Type 3 wildland urban interface (WUI) engines and all 30 contracted water tenders.
Forrest Chambers, OFSM’s response support unit manager, says the apparatus were purchased through the OSFM Engine Program, which was funded by a $25 million legislative appropriation. “OSFM pays for and owns the apparatus and lends them to fire departments for long terms,” Chambers points out. “There’s an initial three year intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the fire department, and then they decide if they want to renew the IGA at the end of three years. We have money in place for pump testing and maintenance for the first three years, while the fire department pays for repairs to any broken equipment.”
Chambers notes that when OSFM got the funds for the program, it put together an advisory committee with chiefs and firefighters from across Oregon, which developed a generic spec for the Type 3. “That was a year long process, and then we refined the spec and came up with the spec that Rosenbauer fulfilled,” he says.
Brenden Feist, president and chief executive officer at General Fire Apparatus, who sold the rigs to OSFM, says the Type 3s are built on International HV507 4×4 chassis and four-door cab with seating for four firefighters, powered by a 360-horsepower (hp) Cummins L9 engine and an Allison 3000 EVS automatic transmission. Wheelbase on the Type 3 is 199 inches, overall length is 26 feet 3 inches, and overall height is 9 feet 5-1/2-inches.
Feist adds that the OSFM Type 3 has a 12,000-pound parabolic taper leaf front suspension, and a 23,500-pound vari-rate spring rear suspension, with an extreme duty body and subframe. “The Rosenbauer design of the 12-gauge galvanneal steel body and subframe is different from an aluminum bolted body,” Feist says, “because the design allows for more body flex with the subframe, which is perfect for off-road travel and Oregon’s hilly terrain.”
The OSFM Type 3 has a midship Waterous CXVK 1,000 gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump, a 500-gallon water tank, a 20-gallon foam cell, a FoamPro 1600 foam proportioning system, and a Waterous E511 series diesel-powered auxiliary pump for pump and roll. Lighting on the Type 3 includes Whelen LED emergency lighting, and HiViz FireTech LED scene lights.
The rig has two 1-3/4-inch crosslays above the pump panel, a pair of ground sweeps under the front bumper, a one-inch hose reel at the rear of the truck, and a Task Force Tips 1,500-gpm Radius deck gun. Feist notes the hose reel and the ground sweeps can be fed by the auxiliary pump.
Chambers points out that the OSFM Type 3 spec was set up to allow the rig to serve as a wildland urban interface (WUI) pumper. “When we developed the spec, we looked at both the wildland and structural worlds in Oregon, and designed the Type 3 so it could be first out on wildland, structural, and motor vehicle accident (MVA) calls,” he says. “The whole point of our program is to bolster the response by fire departments. Some departments couldn’t mobilize for conflagrations because they had the firefighters, but no engine to send them out on. So we provided one vehicle per department that wanted one.”
Feist notes that the OSFM water tenders built by Rosenbauer are on a Freightliner M2 106 chassis with an aluminum Maverick-style body, a 2,000-gallon water tank, a Waterous 750-gpm pump and roll main pump, ground sweeps under the front bumper, a ground ladder compartment, a portable water tank on a rack, Whelen LED emergency lighting, and HiViz FireTech LED scene lights.
Chambers adds that as part of the OSFM Engine Program, OSFM also acquired 20 Type 6 wildland pumpers from Skeeter Brush Trucks for lending to local fire departments.
ALAN M. PETRILLO is a Tucson, Arizona-based journalist, the author of three novels and five nonfiction books, and a member of the Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment Editorial Advisory Board. He served 22 years with the Verdoy (NY) Fire Department, including in the position of chief.