Do American Fire Trucks Need To Be So Massive? - Cheddar Explains

The average American fire truck is huge in comparison to its international counterparts. This size is the result of a hundred years of evolution in firefighting, but today the scale might actually be causing more problems.

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[EFDTRUCK]

It’s cool how they made this whole video from a 10 minute Google search instead of talking to anyone remotely involved in firefighting

[ry]

Coming from Singapore, the "Red Rhino" mentioned in the video isn't the typical fire-fighting vehicle for use in the SCDF (which holds responsibility for fire-fighting service). It was designed for certain situations in certain environments. The SCDF does operate full-sized fire-fighting vehicles, which can be quite massive and heavy. Different types of fires call for different tools.

[RealJeep]

Recently retired city firefighter (1984-2015) and when I started firetrucks were half the size they are now. With each new model, the size was born out of the amount of stuff you were required to carry. Back in 1984 all we had to carry was fireman stuff. Now, firetrucks are basically non-transport vehicles. Cheddar showed a marked lack of research in this video. Many fire departments, tired of wearing out their $750, 000 custom rigs, have moved a lot of the medical things to a Chevy Suburban type vehicle. Firetrucks keep much of the same medical equipment on the rig but now keep the engine behind and let the rescue take the brunt of the calls.

[matthickey]

As a firefighter in America I’d like to give my take and hopefully clear things up here.

I understand all departments are different and have different needs and capabilities depending on what you have in your area. Some being rural, some being in the city, some being somewhere in between.

My engine is 31’ 9” In length. 11’ 9” tall. We have 2, 135 total feet of hose on board. We have 1032 gallons of water on board. We can flow 1500 gallons of water a minute at 150 PSI.

In my department, every compartment of a our engines are pretty much the same all around.

On the driver side, our first compartment is called the “Engineers compartment.” This compartment has different nozzles/ extra nozzles that we can use to help fight the fire. Different nozzles can help I’m different ways. We can change/ swap nozzles out that can give more reach, and more GPM. We also have attachments that can allow us to make foam. In this compartment, we have hose that are 25’ in length (in case the hydrant is near by) so we don’t have to pull another line off the back that is much longer. We keep a tool box that has standard tools. We have a water cooler, scene tape, duct tape, markers, ect.

Our second compartment is our tool compartment. We have everything from pry bars, flat head axe, pick head axe, sledge hammer, lock out kit (to open locked car doors), and other tools.

We have a 3rd compartment that has chainsaws (to cut trees) vent saw (chain saw that is meant to cut holes in roofs to help with ventilation on a house fire. Oil dry for car wrecks, push brooms for cleaning a scene up (works to help spread the oil dry), tarps, tubs for salvaging things (typically on a house fire), forestry rakes, extra oil and fuel for saws. We have k12 saw and extra blades for it. Ground monitor, portable hydrant, ect.

Our back compartment, we have a fan (for ventilation on CO calls and for pushing smoke out of a home). We have a junction box that’s pretty much a really long extension cord. Portable scene lights. Hydrant bag ( bag that has tools to turn hydrant on and flow water) this bag also has adapters and hydrant wrenches, spanned wrenches, flash light, adapters, gate valves, ect.

We have a ladder compartment that has two 10’ pike poles. Two 6’ NY hooks. Back board. 24’ extension ladder. 14’ roof ladder. 10’ attic ladder.

We have a compartment with extrication equipment. We have a spreader (jaws of life). Cutter (to cut cars open). Long and short Ram with support ( push dash). Chains for stabilizing a car. Window cutter (cuts windshields primarily). We have a hydraulic power generator to give power to cutters, spreaders and rams. We also have airbags that allow us to raise a car if a patient is trapped under the car. We can also use the airbags to lift the car and place wood blocks under the car to help stabilize. We carry 20 blocks and more other wedges (called cribbing). We have ratchet straps and plenty of webbing.

Next compartment we have medical equipment. We have a Zoll monitor that can give us vitals and shock a patient in cardiac arrest. We have medical bag with IV kits, life saving drugs, gauze and other life saving equipment. We have also an airway bag that contains everything from a nasal cannula to even where we can intubate a patient if needed.

We are all Hazmat Technicians in my department. We also specialize in technical rescue. These are very few of the many things we have on our Engines. About 95% of our calls are EMS related. And 5% are Fire related.

We respond to all EMS calls. Reason being is we can just have extra hands for the EMS crew. A lot of times, the EMS crew is far away. If we respond and are on scene within 5 minutes, we can get a lot done with the patient before the ambulance arrives. We care for the patient and a lot of times, the patient is ready for transport by the time the ambulance arrives on scene.

Everything on our trucks are needed and vital. We pretty much can handle nearly everything with what we have. Everything we have as far as space for tools is jam packed in there. Every bit of room we have is used.

To end this long comment, we hope not to use anything and pray for the safety of our citizens, however, if anything happens, we are there and are ready.

[zachhomolka]

The final S in the word "chassis" is silent. Its supposed to sound like chassy or shassy

[JuFo]

Austrian firefighter here:

A lot of colleagues from all over the world have already pointed out that this video is basically a google search, but I'd like to add some more information:

It also has to do with getting to places. Generally, we would at least in some cases prefer a larger vehicle with a bigger tank and more storage like in the US. The problem is that in European cities that have grown from medieval towns instead of being pre-planned, every increase in length potentially means one more corner you can't get your vehicle through.

[Thamometer]

It's important to add that the Red Rhinos in Singapore is not our ONLY fire truck. We also have a ladder equipped larger vehicle. (In case anybody wishes to point out how does our firemen reach high rise fires.)

[NKNorman]

From reading the comments it seems like most of the blowback on the video comes from firefighters. Being a firefighter in a moderate to large sized city, I would say that, while presumably well intentioned, the video oversimplifies a number of issues. One easy example would be traffic related accidents. While it's easy in a vacuum to argue that larger fire service vehicles could lead to more traffic related accidents due to their size, the reality is that a lot of citizens don't respond appropriately when emergency vehicles come through. Granted some parts of any given city or parts of the country respond better than others, I can personally attest that not everyone follows the rules. While driving in lights and sirens to fires or other emergencies, I've had civilians cut me off, follow the rig in its blind spot, try to speed past the rig to get ahead of the slow down, among other things. The reality, like is almost always the case, is more nuanced than a brief video can account for. Just food for thought.

[-HUBBABUBBA-]

Love how the thumbnail compares a engine too a whole ass tiller😂

[ivovanzon]

I think the main difference is in coverage. In the Netherlands you have basically two categories of vehicles: General response and specialized ones. The general response truck has the generic equipment, and if you need more the dispatcher will call in a specialized vehicles from a nearby station.
We also use swap bodies for the special equipment which means having one or more trucks getting all the necessary boxes in a shuttle service instead of cramming it in one vehicle.
And with the distances we have, there's almost always an airport vehicle close enough if thing really get out of hand.

[Francisco-fohx]

I feel the need to comment on this matter, as I’m a firefighter in Chile, South America, where we have both EN (European) and NFPA (American) standard fire apparatuses, so I can often directly compare their capabilities.

Though NFPA trucks are generally larger than European ones, that’s not the only factor that has to be taken in consideration to conclude which is better.

My station has been assigned an EN engine, a Rosenbauer AT3 on a MAN chassis. After 5 years of use, most of us think that it underperforms for the needs we have, compared to the American engines. It has been clearly made for a less aggressive kind of firefighting, and has way lesser quality components in key areas, with an extensive use of plastic that easily gives way under heavy use.
The chassis is a commercial one, that hasn’t been thought for the particular needs that we have as firefighters, so it DOESN’T have as powerful brakes as a custom made engine, it doesn’t have a gearbox made for constant acceleration and deceleration and, most importantly, the cab is not as strong in case of a collision, which for us is one of the biggest concerns, as we put our lives on the line every time we leave our station to attend an emergency (of any kind, not just fires), so we want our equipment to be as safe as possible in case things go the wrong way.

Performance wise, American engines are far better, the split shaft pumps can put out massive amounts of water per minute compared to European PTO pumps, so, for large fires, or even for knocking out small fires fast, there is no comparison.

Also, European engines are not necessarily shorter, because, as they have no hose beds, we need to carry hose on large reels that are mounted in the back, adding at least 1.5m to the overall length of the truck.

One last thing I’d like to point out, is that NFPA cabs are larger, and as we mostly have cabs with seating for 8 firefighters, they are far more comfortable for us, specially when in full gear (as we use NFPA bunker gear, which is bulkier)

Regarding ladder trucks, I won’t even comment, their is just no comparison between EN and NFPA standards. I can only say that our NFPA ladders, towers and snorkels far outperform EN ones.

Also, American trucks are not outdated, they have a more traditional look (which we like a lot), but are just as if not more technologically advanced than their European counterparts.

Generally, the consensus over here is that American custom made apparatuses are far better for the job, and we’ve been shifting to buy them instead of European ones, even if more expensive.

So, the only points in favor of Euro trucks would be that they are less expensive, and maybe, that they make more efficient use of the space for tooling, based on their overall footprint.

[SimonTekConley]

I am so thankful a channel that knows nothing about the industry, tells the industry they're wrong

[bearlemley]

Fire departments, thank you for not paying attention to this high school report on firetrucks. Please continue having professional sized equipment with varied capability

[ThatsMrAwesomesauce]

Something not mentioned here is the difference in the actual fires themselves. In Europe most of the construction is old brick with a lot of heavy wood used in flooring making the fires there burn longer and not as hot. This allows local FDs to use lower volumes of water because the water inside a brick room flashes to steam which fills the room and because of the sturdy build cannot escape. In the event of a large industrial fire they have specialized trucks that are as large as American firetrucks. In the US we build most of our structures very thinly, and using many plastics, which make our fires burn much faster and much much hotter. It also allows the steam vapor which could be putting out the fire to escape. Most US fire trucks come with a 1500gpm pump and it is not uncommon to use every single gallon. Quite simply we need to throw much more water on the fire than Europeans. Fire science is pretty neat stuff to learn about!

[armron]

I live in a rural community where the tanker truck is really needed. That's what trucks are so dang big

[RCThomK]

Cheddar - American fire trucks are not 10’ wide as stated at 4:06. They average 8’ to 8.5’ and carry a diverse inventory for multiple emergencies.

You should have considered interviewing the various fire departments to see what type of equipment they carry and why so much.

[adamnieuwenhout]

This isn't just a fire truck issue, either. We are trying to get curb extensions installed in my neighbourhood, but the snow removal authority is against it because their vehicles are gigantic. We over-engineered all of our stroads so these vehicles became bigger and now it's difficult to build safe streets because the vehicles are too big.

[DU-kmbw]

As a firefighter from Germany, we usually use compact vehicles. In my town we had for some times bigger vehicles like 6 wheeled vehicles(if you wanna see Google:Duisburg fire department HLF). These were huge vehicles but in some places not really practical. After all we use vehicle combinations like the HLF which is technically a squad in the US. Every department has one except smaller volunteer brigades in villages for example. The average brigade has one convoy for emergency operations. One Squat vehicle with 6 men, one ladder with 2 men and one engine with two men and at least one ambulance. Depending on the department sometimes two squats or the engine has 4 men. This is the minimum of vehicles per fire house. Volunteer fire houses have minimum one engine or squat and one troop vehicle. For special emergencies some fire houses have specialised vehicles. I am a volunteer, my fire house has one Squat, one engine and one troop vehicle.

[chrismoore]

I always love hearing from someone who doesn't know what they are talking about

[frstrspndr]

Southern California Fire Departments often have utility vehicles on pickup chassis for responding to medical emergencies and even brush fires, which means that a larger truck doesn't always need to be sent to a medical call and same goes for smaller brush fires.