Onondaga Hill Fire Department wanted to replace a rescue-pumper that was duplicating many of the functions of its medium duty rescue truck, so it decided to purchase an aerial ladder quint that would give it both fire suppression and rescue capabilities, and also be able to carry some battery-powered hydraulic rescue tools.
“We border on the city of Syracuse, although we don’t mutual aid with them,” says Sam Garofalo, Onondaga Hill’s chief. “Our fire district has a lot of different types of structures to protect including two hospitals, a community college with four dormitories, a town hall, a jail, churches, apartment buildings, and retirement communities. We protect all that with our new quint, one pumper, a medium duty rescue truck with a compressed air foam system (CAFS), a 93-foot aerial platform, a Kubota wildland utility terrain vehicle (UTV), and an emergency medical services (EMS) first response vehicle, with 30 volunteer firefighters from one station.”
Tim Burkhart, regional sales manager for Spartan Emergency Response, says the Smeal 75-foot rear-mount quint built for Onondaga Hill is on a Spartan Gladiator chassis and long four door (LFD) cab with a 10-inch raised roof with a trench. The quint is powered by a 500-horsepower (hp) Cummins X12 engine, and an Allison 4000 EVS automatic transmission, and has a wheelbase of 235 inches, an overall length of 38 feet, 9 inches, and an overall height of 11 feet, 9 inches.
Nick Hummel, Spartan ER’s director of sales, adds that Onondaga Hill’s quint has a Hale Qmax 2,000-gallons-per-minute (gpm) pump, a 500-gallon UPF Poly® water tank, three crosslays (two 1-3/4-inch and one 2-1/2-inch hose), a 1-3/4-inch hoseline in a well in the extended front bumper, and an Akron Brass StreamMaster II 2,000-gpm monitor at the tip of the ladder, along with a 2-1/2-inch valve under it. He notes that the rig has the Smeal Omni Pump control system with VMux screens at the side pump panel and at the turntable, allowing the pump to be operated from either location.
Steve Dembrowski, territory manager for Colden Enterprises, who sold the Smeal quint to Onondaga Hill, notes that the fire department was decided on a 75-foot aerial ladder quint from the first time they talked. “They have a lot of multi-story, multi-occupancy structures in their district, with a number of them too tight in the approaches to get their 93-foot LTI aerial ladder platform close to them,” Dembrowski points out. “So the 75-foot quint with the shorter wheelbase solved those problems for them.”
Garofalo observes that “Two of the things that brought us to the Smeal quint were its horizontal reach because it has the lowest angle to achieve its vertical reach at 72 degrees, compared to other similar quints with 75-degree angles, and the vehicle’s extended hosebed.”
Burkhart points out that Onondaga Hill’s quint has the easy hose load (EHL) feature that can hold 800 feet of 5-inch large diameter hose (LDH). “The EHL has a hose tray that hydraulically slides out of the rear of the rig at about waist height to allow firefighters to easily load hose,” Burkhart says. “Burkhart adds that the Smeal 75-foot aerial ladder quint has a 750-pound tip load, wet or dry, because of its four outriggers — two out-and-down jacks at the rear of the truck with a 16-foot jack spread, and two jacks at the front that stab straight down.”
On the left and right side rear of the torque box are two slide-in pockets that hold the ground ladders, say Dembrowski. The ground ladder complement in the compartments includes a two-section 35-foot extension ladder, a two-section 24-foot extension ladder, 16-foot and 10-foot roof ladders, and a 14-foot Fresno ladder, while a 16-foot roof ladder is mounted on the aerial, and a Little Giant ladder is carried on the body.
Lighting on the Smeal aerial ladder quint includes Whelen LED emergency lighting, a RotoRay LED light on the front of the rig, two Whelen RotoBeam LED light bars, two Akron Brass Revel LED brow lights, and Akron Brass Revel LED scene lighting.
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.
