Evolution and Development of Modern Fire-Fighting Apparatus

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Fire-fighting as we know it today has gone through a long history of development and changes since the first recorded firefighting attempts were created in the 2nd Century in Alexandria (A Fire Pro, n.d.). One example of this would be the modern pumper truck, or pumper apparatus. The first self-propelled steam powered fire engine was built in New York in 1841 and began the chain reaction of developments that created the fire apparatuses that people know and love today (Calfee, n.d.). When the internal combustion engine was created in the early 1900’s, many departments began to turn away from the steam driven apparatuses that were currently in service. There was one flaw with these new machines though, it had to have two engines to operate …show more content…

These trucks include the engine, which is the standard apparatus, the tower, an apparatus with a hydraulic ladder attached that allows for easier maneuverability, and the pumper truck. The pumper truck itself has gone through many changes over the course of the last hundred years motorized apparatuses have been around. In the 1920’s, pumper trucks could only pump between 400- to 600-gallons per minute. These pumpers by the 1940’s, known as Class B pumpers, were replaced by Class A pumpers. These Class A pumpers could pump an average of 500-gallons per minute or more through the 1940’s and 1950’s. By the early 1970’s though, Class A pumpers had a rating of 750-gallons per minute, which increased to 1,000-1,250-gallons per minute in the late 1970’s. By the mid 1990’s, however, is when we get the pressure we operate at today: 1,500-gallons per minute (Fire Apparatus and Emergency Equipment, 2010). But what created such a high pressure? The horsepower of the engine did. In the 1940’s to 1950’s, the engines on the truck only had 110-150 horsepower, which was increased to 160 to 190 horsepower in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s, there was a switch from gasoline to diesel, causing the horse power in a commercial engine to go from 220 horsepower in the early 1970’s, to 210-240 horsepower in the late 1970’s. By the 1980’s, engines were at 240 to 280 horsepower. And finally, the big jump came

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