CFD Apparatus status discussion (Non-Radio Information)

[MrVelvet]

Hey Jay, or anyone else that may know.

There must have been some recent trucks switch stations as I've heard 14 Aerial and 31 Emerg. Its obvious 14 Aerial came from 24, so did 14 lose their Emerg? What did 24 get?

Was there any other movement?

Thanks

 

[Jay911]

This is a "temporary" measure to combat some serious shortages in functioning aerial ladders.

Recently a number of aerial trucks suffered mechanical breakdowns, some of which require a trip to the manufacturer (usually Red Deer). Unfortunately, most of the nonfunctional aerials were ones from the deep south.

I'm not 100% up on the reasoning behind what they ended up doing, but they put an aerial in 14 Station in order to provide coverage down Macleod Trail. It isn't 24's and it isn't 19's - their crews are still in service in their respective halls, operating the bush buggy and the bush buggy/auxiliary/boat (respectively). The aerial at 14 is ostensibly a spare that has been put into service with extra crewmembers.

14 Emergency was moved to 31 simply because there is no room at 14 for both an aerial and an emerg. In fact, the space is at such a premium in 14 that they swapped pumper trucks with 36 Pump downtown - 36 is living in 2 for now, and has tons of room; however, 14's older yellow pump with a top-mount pump control panel is several feet longer than any of the newer red pumps with a pump panel in the back of the cab. So 36 is using 14 Pump (P1794, IIRC) and 36 Pump's P1088 is crammed into the bay with the spare aerial.

And 31 Station has acres of space, so the emerg was tucked in there.

IIRC, there are at least 3 aerials that are still out for service. Actually, 21 may not have their aerial either, now that I think of it. Same story as 19 - crew is still available on the BB/boat.

Stampede Bush Buggy, btw, is a spare BB - actually, technically, it's 18BB and 18 has a spare. It's extra crew dedicated to work the Stampede daily. And, during the summer, an extra lieutenant is brought into 1 Station to allow the water rescue to operate all the time, without having to take crew away from one of the pumpers.

For what it's worth, word is 33 Station will be open in September. I've heard that it may be a single pump, or, it may be a pump with 29 Tank moving down there. EMS also has sights on at least one ambulance parking in there and very likely a second.

 

[MrVelvet]

Great insight, thanks alot Jay!

I thought I saw 14 pump downtown lately and scratched my head as to why it was around. Although, 14 pump is a newer red truck and 36 pump is an older yellow one...so are the older trucks shorter?

Having an emerg at 31 actually seems to really work location wise and it takes a strain off the ever popular 4 emerg.

Is 33 station going to be the new Douglasdale station or somewhere else?

 

[Jay911]

My bad ... 14 Pump got a newer truck, I had a brain fart. Still, the red "Engine 14-01" is too big for 14 Station with an aerial in it.

31 may eventually get an emergency permanently - we'll see.

33 is at 3800 69 St SW, just about a kilometer north of Glenmore Tr (Hwy 8) on 69 St. It's 90% built - from the outside, looks like paving, landscaping, and some exterior cladding is all that's left. I'm sure inside needs more work yet too.

35 is planned for Valley Ridge. I think I saw some construction going on at the proposed site recently; I need to deke into Valley Ridge someday and take a look.

36 will be at the corner of 2 Avenue and 8 Street SW, at the base of a commercial office tower. Rumor is that it will then become the downtown water rescue station (seeing as how the boat launch is at 8 Street x 1 Avenue - I wouldn't be surprised to see a boathouse come with the deal).

37 and up may have been planned for various communities but I don't know where. I would suspect the next serious concern, by the time 36 is done, would be near the new South Hospital (which will be well under construction by that time, surely).

 

[yyc_tbird_sc]

Jay, is there an available map that shows where all the fire stations are in Calgary?

 

[Jay911]

Yeah, there's this one - with each station clickable. Only stations in-service are shown, for obvious reasons.

 

[MrVelvet]

There is a sign for an upcoming fire/ems station at 114 Ave and 42st SE.

How big will 33 be? Are there new rigs coming for it?

 

[Jay911]

33 Engine (or 33 Pump, you pick - the Engine/Pump thing is a long story) is already here and mainly used at training right now. It's the same as everyone else's 'new' pumps - the red Spartan Gladiator trucks.

33 has four bays, and I believe they're each two truck-lengths deep. From what I heard from the EMS officer I was talking to recently, they have up to "four" spots, so I presume they have two bays two deep.

EMS units are constantly being purchased and replaced. The current EMS chassis of choice is a 2008/9 Ford E450 van/ambulance conversion by Demers Inc. If any of you have dealt with the "new" six-liter Ford diesel engines that replaced the long-standing, hard-working 7.3L Navistar motor, yes, just so you know, from what I have seen, the earlier 06/07 E-series machines EMS has/had are having the same 'experiences' as you are.

 

[MrVelvet]

If you guys use Google Earth, I have files for CFD and EMS stations as well as some of the surrounding MDs.

I use them when I listen during the day to track where events are taking place, I find it really helps me out. I could post them up if there is any interest.

 

[MrVelvet]

Quick follow up aerial question. I'm guessing 14 aerial isn't an SSV and therefor 12 aerial is tagged with doing all the southern public hazard calls on Deerfoot - is this correct?

Is 25 aerial still in service?

 

[Jay911]

Actually, the one spare that was available happened to be SSV-equipped, so 14 is indeed an SSV. (For those who don't know, an SSV is a Scene Safety Vehicle - equipped with a large arrow-board on the rear and a large quantity of traffic cones for closing lanes/roads.)

25 has a spare aerial right now but it's not an SSV.

 

[ENGINE_4]

i have 2 questions, were did hazmat 4 come from?, and are there going to be renovations made to station 5?, thanks

 

[Jay911]

I haven't heard about any renos to 5, but being the oldest hall still in service (moved in in 1952), odds are it's due.

4 Hazmat was moved from 2 Station when 36 Pump was put into service. Despite having the second-largest apparatus floor (behind #16), there isn't enough room at 2 for 2 pumpers, the Bronto, an Emerg, the Parkade truck, 2 medics, and a Hazmat.

 

[ENGINE_4]

Thank you Jay911 =D, has anyone heard of any recent/new deliveries to the calgary fire department?, and if so do you have any pictures??, thanks

 

[MrVelvet]

Here are some pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/FDCentral/CalgaryFireDepartment

 

[Jay911]

Nice album. I won't even gripe that it appears some of my and my bro-in-law's pics are in there.

"12 Aerial" is now at another station. I forget where, maybe 18. Now showing at 12 and 17 stations are the two "baby Brontos" ... "only" 115ft tall (#2 Bronto is 150ft).

The big Greyhound coach style bus is not in the dispatch system and does not have a radio or callsign. It's just a coach used to move people around - i.e. to events, funerals, etc.

ARES-1 is technically not a CFD unit and last I heard from one of the ARES guys (or guys who used to work with ARES), it is in need of replacement.

The "Aquatic Rescue" truck, if you don't already know, is #1 Rescue. The crew cab pickup truck pictured right after it is #1 Boat Tow (sometimes pronounced "#1 Auxiliary").

The pic that has a bunch of people standing around and a bunch of rigs in it has a district chief's van (facing us with the passenger rear door open), and in the far background, one of the Haztech trucks (HT3) - the yellow cube van. Also barely visible right behind that is the mobile mechanic truck (white cube van/pickup truck type machine).

Also of interest is that #2 Emergency, while looking much like all the other rescue trucks, has an extra compartment up front for all the high-angle-rescue ropes & equipment. As such, it's slightly larger (~4 ft longer) than the other rescues. Furthermore, back to the last mentioned picture ... the green light in the chief's van's light "bar" is for command purposes - a flashing green light in fire ground command terminology is the incident command location.

For whoever took pic #23, showing a chief van, the Bronto, and an Aerial working the fire at 17 Av x 14 St SW earlier this year - that is an outstanding photo. As is the next one. Well done!

The pickup truck bodied "Emergency Rescue" (pic #27) was an experiment in "light rescue" technology Calgary played with a couple years ago. They were considering having a number of these rescue trucks around the city and supporting them with one or two (or more) "heavy rescues" like #9. Among other reasons, the crew at #14 disliked this mini-truck because it carries less than a full Emerg, and because it sits low enough that one can't see over traffic while responding.

You will notice in the next pic (#28), what was "QUINT" in an earlier photo about 5 back (with the truck shown in front of the Saddledome) has now been repainted "AERIAL PLATFORM". A "quint", or "quintuple combination pumper", has a fire pump, hose, a water tank, a full complement of ground ladders, and an aerial ladder. (Most pumpers in service across North America today are "triple combination pumpers" - even though they have one or two ground ladders on them.) What I've heard is that CFD cannot/will not operate this piece of apparatus as a pumper because of concerns about staffing - without getting into too much of the mess, pumps run 4 or 5 guys, and aerials run 2 or in rare cases 3 (mainly the Brontos). In order to run the quint effectively, you'd need an entirely different crew complement than either established crew. So it's run as an aerial. None of CFD's other aerials have pumps on board - they have to be pumped into by pumper trucks. Airdrie and Kananaskis and Okotoks have quints, though, and Cochrane will be getting one very soon.

Like I said, good album.. kinda makes me want to upload all my pics to photobucket.

 

[MrVelvet]

Wow Jay, even more great info.

The collection of photos is really only that, a collection of pictures I have found while surfing around the internet. There are a handful that are mine, but most aren't. I hope I'm not representing them as mine, I just wanted to have a place to go to see a collection of department categorized pictures.

 

[ENGINE_4]

Thaank you for the pictures Mr. VELVET!, I know that that quint was originally ment for station 6 in the south dose anyone one if it's still there?, Or was is switched to become 16 platform?, thanks

 

[Jay911]

I've never heard of it being slated for 6 Station. It's always been at 16.. for the first few months, they messed around with it, running it as 16 Pump for a few weeks, with a pump crew, but eventually ran it as 16 Aerial permanently.

I'm in the process of filling my Photobucket account with fire photos I've taken... I'll post when they're all up.

 

[ENGINE_4]

ow, I thought that that platform was at 6 but i guess not, so whats at #6 then, just a pump?, and thank you both for uploading your pics =D