By Alan M. Petrillo
Atoka Fire Department is a relatively new department, just under nine years old, in Tipton County, Tennessee, located 30 minutes north of Memphis. The department has two stations that are staffed by 18 paid full-time and six paid part-time firefighters, and a half dozen volunteer firefighters.
“We have a population of about 11,000 in our coverage area, which is a highly residential rural/suburban area with a limited amount of commercial structures,” says Chance Hall, fire and EMS (emergency medical services) lieutenant. “We also have NSA Mid-South, the U.S. Navy’s Human Resources Center of Excellence nearby.”
Hall says Atoka appointed him chair of an apparatus committee consisting of five seasoned firefighters who made a list of what they wanted in a quint. “There’s only one other truck in the entire county and its a 20-minute drive away on mutual aid,” he points out. “So we decided we wanted a workhorse type of truck with a narrow width for a tight turning radius and a shorter wheelbase, if possible.”
The Atoka quint has a Hale QMax 1,500-gpm single stage pump, a 500-gallon water tank, and a 20-gallon foam tank.
Zach Rudy, Sutphen’s director of sales and marketing, says Atoka decided on a SLR 75 built on a Monarch heavy-duty custom chassis with a 62-inch four-door extended cab and a 10-inch raised roof seating five firefighters, three of them in SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) seats. He says the rig has 10-inch Double Domex frame rails rated up to 110,000-psi (pounds per square inch), a 23,000-pound Hendrickson STEERTEK™ front suspension, a 35,000-pound Dana Air Ride rear suspension with an air bag leveling system, powered by a 455-horsepower (hp) Cummins X12 diesel engine, an Allison 4000 EVS Gen5 automatic transmission, and a Leece Neville 420-amp alternator.
The quint has a Hale QMax 1,500-gallon per minute (gpm) single-stage pump, a 500-gallon water tank, and a 20-gallon foam tank. Rudy says the quint has a Huckbolt #304 stainless steel body with a mix of roll-up and hinged compartment doors over its 175-cubic-feet of compartment space. Wheelbase on the rig is 206 inches, overall length is 17 feet, 11 inches, and overall height is 11 feet, 10 inches.
The Atoka quint has a Hale QMax 1,500-gpm single stage pump, a 500-gallon water tank, and a 20-gallon foam tank.
Hall observes the SLR 75 aerial ladder quint “is the first rear-mount truck in Tennessee, and the first Sutphen aerial in western Tennessee, so we wanted to make it very functional. We put an EMS cabinet in the cab, and full height compartments on both sides of the body.” He notes the quint carries one 200-foot, 2-1/2-inch cross lay and two 1-3/4-inch cross lays of 200 feet each, a 1-3/4-inch line in the 24-inch extended front bumper, two 2-1/2-inch discharges on the left side of the pump panel, one 4-inch and one 2-1/2-inch discharge on the right, and a Task Force Tips 1,500-gpm Typhoon remote control monitor at the tip of the ladder.
The rig has an Alco-Lite ladder complement of one 35-foot three-section extension ladder, one 24-foot two-section extension ladder, one 16-foot roof ladder, and a 10-foot folding ladder in a ladder tunnel accessed from the rear, and a 10-foot folding ladder on the fly section of the aerial. Atoka’s quint also has a grill-mounted Federal Q2B siren, a Brigade three-camera system, and a Hannay electric cord reel with 150-feet of one-inch booster hose.
The quint carries a Task Force Tips Typhoon 1,500-gpm remote control monitor at the tip of the ladder.
Lighting on the quint includes a Hi Viz Fire Tech three-piece LED brow light, a Whelen FN Mini LED light bar, Whelen LED emergency lights, Whelen LED scene lights, and four Hi Viz Fire Tech LED boom spot lights.
