Odds and Ends this morning:

If you haven’t read last night’s postings yet, about 3 entries down is a brief article (HERE) about a fire engine rollover in central Virginia in which the RollTek SRP (side roll protection) system was deployed.  The RollTek system is largely used in the commercial trucking industry, but in the past couple of years some of the custom fire apparatus builders have been offering it as an option.

This is the first time that we know of where the SRP has actually deployed on a fire engine accident.  Engineers from both Pierce (who made this particular engine) and RollTek are at the location today and they will be able to do a thorough investigation of the event.  The first indications are that the device worked just as promised and protected the driver.  But we’ll wait until the pro’s finish their inspection.  Firegeezer’s apparatus expert, LightRock is keeping an eye on this one and will report back to us when the investigation is finished.

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Yesterday I was reading an article in EMS1 (HERE) about a program in San Jose where they have purchased fire SUV’s and outfitted them with as assortment of ambulance equipment and a capability to transport a patient that is in a life-threatening condition.  The purpose of them is to get paramedics on the scene quickly and even transport if need be when the responding ambulance can’t get there in a reasonable time.

This program, which they call the S.T.A.R. program, was expected to generate at least one call a day per unit but in practice they were only being utilized an average of twice a week.  I gather from the story that they are independently staffed, so that’s 10 FF’s being paid around the clock for 10 responses per week.

So, in order to salvage the program, they are adding some firefighter tools too.  The plan is to use the STAR cars for non-emergency calls such as lockouts and broken water pipes, and keep the fire engines in quarters.  They are calling it a “pilot program,” but it’s really nothing new.  This concept has been tried several times in various departments over the years and it never has proven beneficial to the point that it’s worth spending all that money on it.  Usually the program runs until the vehicles need replacing and then the item is not budgeted.  The experiment then fades away.

In fact, my own department tried this same concept 30 years ago, using vans (they were popular then) and labeled it the S.E.R.V. program.  They always have catchy acronyms like that.  A couple of firefighters would take the SERV van out and inspect hydrants, handle the lockouts, etc.  And at night they would do fire inspections on places of public assembly.  It was right at the same time that the drive-in movie theaters were desperately trying to stay in business by resorting to showing soft-porn films.

All right, let’s get the equipment checked.  I’ll see you at the coffee table.

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