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The main purpose of the fire department pumper is to provide water at adequate pressure for fire streams. The water supplied by the pumper may come from the truck’s water tank, fire hydrant, or from an outside source a static supply such as a gravity tank, a swimming pool or a lake.
On the pumper/rescue trucks currently in service with the Brantford Fire Department the primary water tank is inside the vehicle, and it holds 500 gallons (2,200 liters) of water and it runs down the center in the rear of the truck. Water can be stored in the truck's tank or drawn through hard suction hoses from an outside source and then discharged through water lines, or hoses. These lines are connected at points around the pumper. |
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| The pumper provides the pressure necessary to pump water through the hoses. The pump panel manages the discharge of water while fighting a fire, and can be a confusing array of knobs, levers, gauges, inlets, outlets, lights and control handles to an untrained person. The pump panel is a series of levers and switches, which controls how much water is flowing and which hoses are being discharged. |
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| The panel contains valves and gauges to manage the water used while fighting a fire. There are other devices used with the hoses. These devices are grouped into two categories: appliances and tools. An easy way to tell them apart is that the appliances have water flowing through them, while the tools do not.
When arriving at a fire scene, it becomes the responsibility of the driver to operate the pump. For every fire hose that is fed by the pump, there is a gauge to tell the operator the
flow pressure. A control handle is used to turn the water supply on or off. It is extremely important that the hoses remain charged while firefighters are fighting a fire. A charged hose allows the firefighters to do their job safely, so the job of the pump operator is very important, and the pump panel is his tool to do his or her job. | |
