Vancouver (WA) Fire Department has three tractor drawn aerials (TDA) in its first line fleet that also includes 11 engines and three rescue trucks operating out of 11 fire stations. The department needed to replace the oldest of the tillers and wanted a new rig that mirrored the customization of its earlier TDAs. Vancouver chose KME to build that new tiller.
“Our three TDAs all had Ladder Tower Inc. (LTI) aerials on them, and each had been refurbished at different times in their lives,” says Chuck Winkler, Vancouver’s fleet manager. “We wanted the new TDA to have the same compartmentation and ladder banking as our previous tillers.”
Tim Besser, sales manager for KME, says the new 100-foot TDA for Vancouver is built on a Predator medium four door (MFD) tractor chassis and cab with a Hendrickson STEERTEK NXT front suspension, powered by a 500-horsepower (hp) Cummins X15 engine and an Allison 4000 EVS automatic transmission. “This is a more compact TDA with full height compartments along the length of the trailer, with aerial access on both sides and no waterway.” Overall wheelbase on the rig is 315 inches, overall length is 55 feet, 6 inches, and overall height is 11 feet, 2 inches, he adds.
Eric Hall, sales manager at Cascade Fire & Safety, who sold the TDA to Vancouver, says the truck has a 100-foot vertical reach, a 92-foot horizontal reach, a 500-pound tip load, an ASA Voyager camera system, a Class-1 ES-Key Ultraview display, and a Harrison 10-kW generator.
Hall points out that the trailer section “has full height compartments all the way back on both sides, making the body symmetrical,” and with tiller access on both sides of the rig.
In the ladder compartment, which KME designed to mirror the department’s ladder banking in its previous tillers, Vancouver carries a 10-foot folding, 35-foot two section extension, 24-foot two-section extension, 20-foot roof, 16-foot roof, 25-foot wall, 20-foot wall, and 50-foot 3-section truss ladder, as well as a Little Giant ladder, and six pike poles. On the base section of the aerial is a 10-foot roof ladder.
Lighting on the Vancouver tractor drawn aerial includes Whelen LED emergency lighting, a Whelen Freedom IV light bar, HiViz FireTech LED brow and corner cab roof lighting, Whelen Pioneer LED scene lights, and FRC Spectra Max LED scene lights.
Winkler points out that the KME TDA “has performed very well for us, and our firefighters are extremely happy with it.”
ALAN M. PETRILLO is a Tucson, Arizona-based journalist, the author of three novels and five nonfiction books, and a member of the Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment Editorial Advisory Board. He served 22 years with the Verdoy (NY) Fire Department, including in the position of chief.
