Fire Engines Photos

Hey Bill, this is what I call 'a working truck, ' I'm a little confused by the different size suction hose on the bottom of the stack, but I love all the gear hanging off everywhere, in it's own way everything is so neat and tidy, fabulous!

Added by Pav on 11 December 2013.

Pav, you made me take a second look at the hard suctions. The smaller one is a strange doubled female hard suction. I wonder what the purpose of this hose is?
The hoses below hard suctions are high rise building packs to be carried into the building sand connected to the building standpipe system.

Added by Les Davis on 11 December 2013.

I lived in New York for many years, and I never quite understood why FDNY still carry so much hard suction hose on their pumpers. Most big city departments here use 5 inch flat hose for hydrant supply, but FDNY still have an SOP of placing the first due engine right on top of the hydrant and hooking up using the hard suction.

Water pressure in New York City is not likely to be a problem, so I really don't understand why FDNY still operate this way. Does anyone know why they do this?

It would possibly explain the small-diameter suction - there are s few hydrants with no 4.5 inch outlet, which would require an adaptor or a smaller diameter supply hose to the pumper - but it still asks thw question why this should be a hard suction?

Russian fire services regularly use one small diameter hard suction and one 70mm flat hose to connect their pumpers to the mains, via a European-style dual-outlet T-top standpipe. This has been explained to me as a precaution against falling water mains pressure - but I can't see this as being a very likely potential problem in New York City.

Added by Rob Johnson on 11 December 2013.

This pumper has a 2000 GPM Waterous 3-stage high-pressure pump. Seagrave is also delivering 1000 GPM rescue-engines that are going to the Squad companies.

Added by Warren W. Jenkins on 14 December 2013.

The department i'm on has a 1000 gpm 3 stage which we just pick up and did come with any do and don'ts and help.

Added by Brian Coombs on 01 April 2014.

I am confused about the difference in specification between FDNY's regular engine company pumpers and their Squad Company units. Is it just pump rating, or are there other important differences?

Added by Rob Johnson on 05 August 2014.

After 9/11 water had to be pumped from the Hudson using a fireboat. Makes sense to me to be prepared for any emergency hence the hard suction

Added by Carl on 08 November 2014.

From what I’ve been told from members at fdny when I visited the bottom 2 hard sections are not normal hard suction for drafting due to tight roads these hoses are very flexible more so then hard suction and they are used to hook to hydrants so they can park right on the curb to let the trucks get by there 2 sizes ones a 3.5 and the other is 5 they carry the 3.5 cause they still have hydrants with only 3” connections and the 5” can be used on a normal hydrant if the driver chooses to they also rarely pull more then 2 line off of a single engine so ldh is not really needed with hydrants so close to each other and only having 1000gpm pumps

Added by Jeff on 09 May 2021.

Thanks Jeff

No longer a mystery - but most departments use flat hose for hydrant hookup these days

Added by Rob Johnson on 10 May 2021.

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