Fire Departments and Coverage Area

[Mopar1973Man]

I was just informed of this tidbit of information about Salmon River Rural Fire Department. I was listening to the Fire Chief talk about ground we cover.  We cover 67 miles of the canyon floor plus 12 miles on either side of the main highway. Then you have to cover all the side roads leading away from the main highway and 12 miles of either side of that road. So, Salmon River Rural is the biggest fire department for coverage in the state of Idaho. Then we rank 5^thin the nation for size of district. We have 6 fire station scattered along the canyon from Pinehurst Station #1, White Water Wilderness Ranch #2, Rapid River #3, Lucile #4, Slate Creek #5, White Bird #6. Each station house has two trucks some are water tenders, structure engines or fast attacks / wildland. What is really scary about all this we only have 1 fire hydrant in the entire district. Now consider the skills it takes to organize and keep water coming to fire fighters be it you are pumping water from a creek or river then truck it back to the scene.

[flagmanruss]

I'm not a participating FD member (though wife & I keep memberships, just to support).  Almost all of our town & really many in our state do not have pressurized hydrants.  There are several dry hydrants or other drafting stations located throughout our town.   It's standard proceedure to call out mutual aid...  the first pumper on scene sets out the water tanks.  Mutual aid tankers drop their water...  by then a pumper is set up to draft at a nearby water source & all the tankers refill. 

All our Fire Dept first trucks out have CAF foam now, since the Fire District separated from the Town.   Abbutting Districts are adding the foam since seeing how well it has worked.  Our FD has had some spectacular saves...  deploying foam from front turrets before the Firefighters are even off the truck. 

[Mopar1973Man]

There is a science to the fire fighting in the canyon. There is times when fires occur the local creek are nearly dried up. We will typically page out a second tone for assistance from other local cities and start shuttling water from the main river to the fire. Porta-ponds or fold-a-tanks are used quite a bit. Structure fire are not as common here till lately. But grass fires and vehicle fire tend to be more common place.

 

As for us and foam we are not a big pusher of foam. We've lost a lot of equipment from improper use and clean up of foam. We are always fixing rotting plumbing parts and damage pump parts from foam being used. So majority of the fires we have we stick to water mainly. Even though foam requires less water but does more damage to pump plumbing. Only one fire station has water. The other 5 stations don't even have running water. Just a shed and power. So proper clean up of the equipment is rather hard and most just want to get the truck back to quarters and go back to bed and get sleep or get back to work at their jobs.

[flagmanruss]

Lack of water at station sure explains a lot!