Special Delivery Alan M. Petrillo
The Durham Fire Department has a carbon neutrality plan that attempts to reduce the amount of diesel fuel its fleet apparatus use and reduce the emissions they produce.
The department did its homework on systems that reduce emissions and fuel consumption and decided to purchase custom pumpers with idle control systems from Sutphen Corporation.
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John Ferguson, assistant director of fleet management for Durham Fire, says the department has 31 frontline apparatus operating out of 19 stations, meaning a lot of emissions are produced and a lot of diesel fuel is consumed during its annual 30,000 calls. Ferguson says the department reviewed its carbon neutrality plan and while it didn’t want to go the electric fire vehicle route yet, it still wanted to cut down on emissions as well as maintenance and diesel fuel costs.
“After a lot of investigation, we chose to go with Sutphen custom pumpers that have an idle control system and an integrated battery,” Ferguson says. “We now have seven of those Sutphen engines in service, four more in production, and three more on order. We’ve learned that we have had a reduction of 7.5% in diesel fuel consumption over the past 1½ years due to the use of the idle control systems.”
Dillon Naylor, senior sales territory manager for Sutphen, says the seven Durham pumpers are identical units, each built on a Sutphen Monarch heavy duty custom chassis with a 62-inch extended cab and a 10-inch half-raised roof with seating for five firefighters, four of them in H.O. Bostrom self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) seats, and two emergency medical services (EMS) cabinets in the crew cab. He notes the pumpers have 10-inch double Domex frame rails rated to 50,000 pounds per square inch (psi), 18,000- pound Hendrickson STEERTEK™ NXT front axles and suspensions, and 27,000- pound Hendrickson air ride rear axles and suspensions.
Naylor points out the Durham pumpers are powered by 450-horsepower (hp) Cummins L9 engines and Allison 3000 EVS Gen 5 automatic transmissions and have 420-amp Leece Neville alternators. Wheelbase on the pumpers is 176½ inches, overall length is 30 feet 3 inches, and overall height is 9 feet 9 inches. The rigs carry Hale Qmax 1,500-gallon per minute (gpm) single-stage pumps, 500-gallon water tanks, and Harrison Hydra-Gen hPower 2B1C 275-amp-hour idle reduction systems with integrated lithium-ion battery systems.
The idle reduction system will automatically take over powering the electrical needs of a pumper once the rig is set in park with the brake on, Naylor notes, and can be overridden if the operator wants to run the chassis diesel engine. “As the batteries get depleted to 20% of their capacity, the the idle reduction system battery management system turns the chassis diesel engine back on for power to the vehicle and also to power an inverter and recharge the idle reduction system batteries,” he says. “Once the batteries reach an adequate charge, the chassis engine shuts down and the idle reduction system again runs the lights, heating and air conditioning, and other electrical needs of the vehicle.”
Kirt Redburn, Durham’s fire maintenance operations supervisor, says the pumpers are the first ones fully designed by a truck committee. “We got a low hosebed on these pumpers, and they are our first attempt to do most of our work off the rear of the vehicle.” While the pumpers carry side-mount pumps, almost all of the discharges are off the rear of the rigs. The hose loads in the pumpers’ hosebeds, from left to right, have two sections of 200 feet each of preconnected 1.88-inch hose, two sections each of 550 feet of preconnected 2½-inch, sections for 200 feet of preconnected 2½-inch hose, sections for 400 feet of 1.88-inch dead lay, and sections for 800 feet of 5-inch large-diameter hose (LDH).
The rigs also have a combination of hinged and roll-up compartment doors, more than 220 cubic feet of compartment space, grille-mounted Federal Signal Q2B sirens, FRC InView™ TrueSight three-camera systems, and five-position David Clark intercom systems.
Redburn adds that the rigs also carry 5-inch front suctions, Elkhart Brass 8297 ground-based monitors, 150 feet of 1.88- inch hose in covered compartments in the extended front bumpers, and 200 feet of one-inch booster line on Hannay electric reels in the dunnage areas on the officer side of the rigs. With the Sutphen pumpers, Redburn notes that the department also moved away from electric ladder racks to traditional side-mounted racks on the officer side for the pumpers’ two-section 24-foot Duo-Safety extension ladders, 14-foot roof ladders, 10-foot folding ladders, and two New York roof hooks.
Lighting on the pumpers includes Whelen LED M9 and L31 emergency lighting, 72-inch Whelen LED Freedom IV lightbars, Whelen 600 LED red Rota- Beam lights, Whelen TAL85 Traffic Advisors at the rear, HiViz FireTech 12-volt LED three-piece brow lights, and six HiViz FireTech Guardian LED 12-volt scene lights.
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.
