The Sharonville (OH) Fire Department covers a 10½-square-mile district with a population of 13,000 that doubles during the daytime because of a heavy concentration of industrial and manufacturing facilities. The department has 40 paid full-time firefighters and 30 paid part-time firefighters operating an engine and two aerial ladder quints out of three fire stations.
Deputy Chief Keith Becker says the department was planning to retire a reserve pumper, and wanted to put its aerial ladder quint at Station 88 into reserve status and replace it with a new aerial ladder quint. “Station 88 is up on a hill where there are a lot of condominiums, apartment complexes, and office complexes,” Becker points out, “so we wanted to have our new quint set up for both residential and commercial use. We looked at aerial ladder quints made by several manufacturers and decided to purchase an E-ONE.”
Michael Purvis, E-ONE’s director of sales, says the rig his company built for Sharonville is an HP78 aerial ladder quint built on a Cyclone four-door 100-inch-wide-cab and chassis with seating for six firefighters, five of them in USSC Valor self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) seats with IMMI Smart Dock brackets. He notes that the back side of the engine doghouse has map book holders with shelving for storage below that’s secured by cargo netting, and also medical cabinets on the outboard sides of the two forward-facing seats.
Purvis says the rig has a wheelbase of 220 inches, an overall length of 37 feet, and an overall height of 11 feet 7 inches, a 500-horsepower (hp) Cummins engine, and an Allison 4000 EVS automatic transmission.
“The 78-foot aerial ladder has a 750-pound tip load and is controlled by E-ONE’s Advanced Aerial Control system,” he says, “with a single set of H-style outriggers providing a 16-foot jack spread that can be short-jacked in alley mode for tighter spaces, allowing for deployment with less spread.”
Kevin Kleman, vice president of Vogelpohl Fire Equipment, who sold the HP78 to Sharonville, says the quint has rescue-style compartments on both sides of the body, a 1,500-gallon-per-minute (gpm) Waterous CSU pump, a 500-gallon water tank, a SideStacker hosebed that holds 1,000 feet of 5-inch large diameter hose (LDH), and an Akron StreamMaster II remote-controlled monitor at the tip of the aerial.
Becker points out that the E-ONE quint has two 200-foot 1¾-inch hose crosslays, one 200-foot 2½-inch hose crosslay, 300 feet of 2½-inch hose deadlay above the side-mount pump panel, and 100-feet of 1¾-inch hose in an extended front bumper compartment.
Kleman says the quint’s ground ladder complement includes a three-section 35-foot extension ladder, a two-section 28-foot extension ladder, a 16-foot roof ladder, and a 10-foot folding ladder in a slide-in compartment under the turntable, and a 14-foot roof ladder on the base of the aerial.
Purvis adds that the rig has two Whelen Freedom IV Mini LED lights, Whelen M6 LED warning and scene lights, HiViz FireTech LED scene lights, and Whelen Super LED beacons at the rear.
ALAN M. PETRILLO is a Tucson, Arizona-based journalist who has served as a newspaper reporter, editor, and magazine writer, and is a member of the Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment Editorial Advisory Board. He served 22 years as a firefighter with the Verdoy (NY) Fire Department, including in the position of chief.
