My fire department will be taking delivery of our new Engine later this month. Myself and 3 other firefighters were the department committee for the new truck, we came up with the design of the entire truck, other than the basic cab structure. Fire trucks are like snow flakes, no two are alike. Typically everything is custom made to fit the departments needs, including the seating/cabinet arrangements inside. It was pretty cool to be a part of it. Our truck is being built by Custom Fire out of Osceola, WI and they have a Factory Floor Blog where they show the trucks that they're working on being built step by step. Here's the link for our new rig, with pictures from start to current progress: http://customfire.com/details.php?id=130 The official specs are that it's a 2009 Spartan MetroFlex chassis with a 425hp/1250 lb/ft Cummins ISL engine mated to an Allison 3000EVS transmission. It has a Waterous CSUC20C pump rated at 1500 GPM at 150 PSI. The cab is a Medium length 4 door with a modified rear section and a 20 inch lift so we can stand inside. We'll have a hydraulic ladder rack on the passenger side with a fully enclosed box to hold our ladders and pike poles. The amazing part is that from start to finish, it'll have been about a month to fabricate, wire, build and paint the truck. We should be taking delivery around the 27th.
Very cool - I wish I weren't at work so I could see this thing. That's crazy - a month for a completely custom truck.
Yeah, I was amazed by that as well. A lot of prep work goes into something like that, the CAD blueprints have been done for a while now, and Custom does laser cut panels, that's why the aluminum and steel panels have that plastic wrapping on in a lot of the pictures. They can just laser cut everything and start building. The tank, pump and assorted plumbing don't take too long to get mounted and completed either. It took about a year to get everything finalized though, so the manufacturing process has been the easiest part.
My Dad was a fire chief, so I can really relate to your excitement! He would have went nuts to have a budget for a truck like that. Congrats!
They do an amazing job on those trucks, my dad's Deputy Chief at Pine Island and they've gotten 3 trucks from there, the most recent is an F350 V10:yumyum:
What department was he with? This one is coming with all the hand tools, radios, etc so closer to 500k. Never got to spend that kind of money before. They've done a couple of our past pumpers as well and done a great job. We're spoiled here in MN, we're surrounded by some great truck manufacturers. Pierce, Oshkosh, Seagrave, Custom, General Safety/Rosenbauer, Crimson to name a few. We just got our new medium rescue truck from General Safety, it's an F550 with the 6.0 diesel. It scoots right along for being as big as it is. I've got one of the only red cars at my station. Of course, this truck is replacing a yellow one, as we're in the process from changing color schemes from Yellow/White to Red/White.
very nice truck, alot of those truck manufactures use our brass connectors, ball valves, and hosing in their trucks so its good to see orders moving. right now I'm working on trying to get Parker in the control cabinets for the control valves. So i get to spend alot of time in their shops its pretty sweet to watch these bad boys get built up.
Well, we took delivery of our new pumper on Tuesday and it's even better than I hoped it would be. Here are the pictures that Custom took, and they should be updating the stats on the truck pretty quickly: http://customfire.com/details.php?id=130
We were split on the decision, but in the end we figured it'd be better to put water in there. We got the idea from Monticello Fire, they also carry a truck mounted refrigerator for their bottled water. It's nice when you're working in turnout gear to have a bottle of cold water vs ambient temp.
