The Cassie (TX) Volunteer Fire Department covers 24 square miles of Texas hill country and two lakes in Burnet County Emergency Services District (ESD) No. 2 with a paid chief and 16 volunteer firefighters operating out of one station.
Chief Derrick Curtis says the district was created in 2009, and Cassie Fire currently runs a 2013 Rosenbauer engine with a compressed air foam system (CAFS), a 2010 Rosenbauer 2,000-gallon tanker, a 2006 Ford F-350 brush truck, a 2016 Dodge brush truck, a 2019 Chevy Tahoe command unit, a 2018 Zodiac rigid-hull inflatable boat (RIB), a 2020 Gravely fire/rescue utility terrain vehicle (UTV), and a 2020 special operations trailer.
“We wanted to build for the future, so the fire department and the ESD started looking for a rig that could meet multiple needs, like structure fires, rescues, motor vehicle accidents (MVAs), high-angle rescue, and wildland fires,” Curtis points out. “We also wanted a vehicle that was small enough and agile enough to get to our waterfronts.”
Curtis adds that department representatives ran into Darley at FDIC International 2024 and got an opportunity to examine a tactical pumper that Darley had in its booth. “We spent some time with that truck and decided that it was everything we needed in a rig and the right timing for us,” he says. “They had a chassis available in Chippewa Falls, so we sent our guys out to tour the factory and the pump manufacturing plant.”
Kyle Darley, vice president of Darley’s tactical division, says the Cassie tactical pumper is built on a four-door International CV515 4×4 cab and chassis with seating for four firefighters, two in self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) seats, and is powered by a 350-horsepower (hp) 6.6-liter Duramax diesel engine and automatic transmission.
Darley says the tactical pumper has a 1,500 gallon-per-minute (gpm) Darley PSMC midship pump, a 400-gallon water tank, a 20-gallon foam tank, a FoamPro 2001 foam proportioning system, and a Darley AutoCAFS system with a 120 cubic-feet-per-minute (cfm) compressor. “The rig has two 200-foot 1¾-inch crosslays and one 200-foot 2½-inch crosslay, all of which can flow water, water/foam, or CAFS,” he notes.
The tactical pumper has two 6-inch suctions (left and right sides) controlled by electronic butterfly valves and one 2½-inch auxiliary suction on the driver’s side, Darley says. “There’s also a Darley autofill valve at the rear of the truck,” he adds, “that modulates based on the water tank level. When the tank level drops to 40%, a hydrant or tanker will automatically fill the tactical pumper’s water tank, with the autofill valve closing at 95% of tank capacity so the tank doesn’t overfill.”
Curtis says that Cassie had Darley install boxes below the pump panel on each side for additional storage and put in storage space for additional SCBA and two spare cylinders in the L1 and R1 compartments. He notes that all compartments are covered by AMDOR roll-up doors.
“We added a lazy-Susan style fixture on a slide-out tray in the R3 compartment to hold our HURST Jaws of Life® E3 battery-powered cutter and spreader, and our POWER HAWK Technologies ram,” he adds. The tactical pumper’s hosebed holds 500 feet of 5-inch large diameter hose (LDH) and 400 feet of 2½-inch hose, Curtis notes, while the lighting on the rig includes a Whelen LED emergency lighting package and FRC Spectra LED scene lights.
“The tactical pumper has been a very good truck for us,” Curtis points out. “We took it to a fully involved structure fire and were able to save 50% of the structure using 4,500 gallons of water and 10 gallons of foam through the Darley AutoCAFS,” he says.
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.
