Rosenbauer has built a rear-mount pumper with a Hale Products SAM™ Control System for Herculaneum (MO) Fire Department, the agency that received Commander™ chassis 001 on a pumper Rosenbauer built for them in 2012.
“The new pumper is almost a twin of our first Rosenbauer,” says Kevin Baker, Herculaneum’s chief, “except for the SAM system and the fact that we shortened the wheelbase and eliminated two feet off of the truck’s overall length.”
SAM is an integrated total water flow control system that manages a vehicle’s pump, tank, intakes, and discharges through a touch screen display interface. “With a crew of four firefighters on the pumper, the SAM system changes what our firefighters can do at a scene, getting them operational much more quickly,” Baker says.
Carl Lindemann, project manager for Rosenbauer, says that the SAM system “was a big feature that the department was very excited about, as well as the Will-Burt Night Scan Powerlite light tower that’s stored vertically behind the crew cab.” Lindemann notes that the new rig for Herculaneum is built on a Commander EXT chassis with a 70-inch cab and 11-inch raised roof, powered by a 500-horsepower (hp) Cummins X12 engine, and an Allison 4000 EVS automatic transmission.
The pumper has a 203-inch wheelbase, a 34 feet, 8 inches overall length, and 10 feet, 2 inches overall height, with a 20,000 pounds Hendrickson parabolic spring front suspension, and a 31,000 pounds Reyco Granning 79KB spring rear suspension, Lindemann adds.
Brian Franz, president and owner of Sentinel Emergency Solutions, who sold the pumper to Herculaneum, says the rig has a Hale RSD 1,500-gallon per minute (gpm) rear-mount pump, a 750-gallon water tank, a 30-gallon foam tank, and a Hale Class 1 UltraView 2.1 foam system, controlled by the SAM system.
Franz points out that the pumper has an Akron Brass Apollo™ HiRiser™ deck gun, 100 feet of 1-3/4-inch preconnect in the extended front bumper, two recessed speedlays in trays at the right rear of the vehicle holding 200 feet and 150 feet of preconnected 1-3/4-inch hose, 250 feet of 2-1/2-inch hose tipped by a Task Force Tips Blitzfifre nozzle preconnected in the hosebed, two 2-1/2-inch discharges, and one 4-inch discharge. He adds that the two speedlays, the hosebed preconnect and the front bumper preconnect are all foam capable.
Baker says the new pumper’s hosebed carries 900 feet of 5-inch large diameter hose (LDH), and 500 feet of 2-1/2-inch hose in a split load, 250 feet preconnected and 250 feet dead load. He notes that the rig has a Rosenbauer electric ladder rack on the upper right side that holds a Duo-Safety two-section 24-foot extension ladder, a 14-foot roof ladder and a 10-foot folding attic ladder. Under the rack is a compartment accessed from the rear that holds a 10-foot length of 6-inch hard suction, and 10-foot and 6-foot pike poles. On the top left side of the rig are two coffin compartments, each 99-1/2-inches long, one of which carries a Stokes basket that drops in vertically.
Lindemann says the Herculaneum pumper has HiViz FireTech LED headlights, a HiViz FireTech LED brow light, a Code 3 RMX 91-inch wide LED lightbar, a Code 3 LED warning light package with split red and blue prisms, and HiViz FireTech Guardian Elite LED 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.
