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Fire Engines |
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| Most parks located away from urban areas maintain their own fire protection and suppression equipment. Structural fire protection is provided by park staff trained in structural fire suppression and in the use of structural fire engines. Many more parks have wildland fire engines. They come in different sizes (Types) depending upon the rate and type of incidents and fuels. |
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Type 1
Structural engine with minimal pump capacities of 1000 gallons per minute (GPM) |
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400 gallon tank |
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200 feet of 1" hose |
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1200 feet of 2 ½" hose |
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400 feet of 1 ½" hose |
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At least 20 feet of ladder |
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Requires a minimal crew of 4 |
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Type 2
Structural engine with minimal pump capacities of 500 GPM |
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400 gallon tank |
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1000 feet of 2 ½" hose |
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500 feet of 1 ½" hose |
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300 feet of 1" hose |
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20 feet of ladder |
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Requires a minimal crew of 3 |
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Wildland Engines |
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Type 3
A wildland engine with minimal pump capacities of 120 GPM |
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500 gallon tank |
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1000 feet of 1 ½" hose |
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800 feet of 1" hose |
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Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) generally greater that 20,000 pounds |
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Requires a minimum crew of 3 |
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Type 4
A wildland engine with minimal pump capacities of 70 GPM |
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750 gallon tank |
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300 feet of 1 ½" hose |
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300 feet of 1" hose |
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The chassis GVWR is in excess of 26,000 pounds |
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Requires a minimum crew of 3 |
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Type 5
A wildland engine with minimal pump capacities of 50 GPM |
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500 gallon tank |
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300 feet of 1 ½" hose |
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300 feet of 1" hose |
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The chassis GVWR is between 16,000 to 26,000 pounds |
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Requires a minimum crew of 3 |
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Type 6
An initial attack wildland engine with minimal pump capacities of 50 GPM |
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200 gallon tank |
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300 feet of 1 ½" hose |
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300 feet of 1" hose |
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The chassis GVWR is between 9,000 to 16,000 pounds |
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Requires a minimum crew of 2 |
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Type 7
A light duty vehicle on a 6,500 to 10,000 GVWR chassis |
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The vehicle has a small pump (20 gpm) |
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125 gallon tank |
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200 feet of 1 ½" and 1" hose |
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It is a multipurpose unit used for patrol, mop up or initial attack with a crew of 2 |
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Medium-sized engines can be used either for wildland fire operations or structure protection in the wildland-urban interface. A crew of three to four is required to operate these engines.
Engine crews are used for initial attack on developing fires close to roads. The crew can hike or be flown to fires in more remote areas. During extended attack, engine crews support fireline production, structure protection, and helicopter operations. One advantage of engine crews is the ability to build "wet line". Wet line is fireline that uses water or foam in place of digging to mineral soil. This minimizes the impact to vegetation and limits erosion.
Structure triage is the process of identifying which structures can be saved and which cannot be saved. For those structures that can be saved, sprinklers and foil wrap can be used for protection. Reducing fuels around the structures is also a valuable technique to reduce the intensity of fires around structures.
Some larger parks maintain a cache of pumps and water handling equipment. Pumps are of several different varieties and capacities, from small pumps for mopping up, to large pumps to support structure protection. While some larger parks have permanent engine crews that provide fire protection, in most parks, fire protection is a collateral duty of park employees. |
