Chief Erik Nelson and the folks at the South Onondaga VFD (New York) hosted our 2-day Rural Water Supply Operations Seminar on August 2nd and 3rd. As usual, the seminar culminated with a 2-hour tanker shuttle operation. Crews worked really hard to "beat the clock" and get the initial flow going without the use of a nurse tanker - and they were successful! An average flow of 792 gpm was attained during the 2-hour period with a peak flow of 1,000 gpm for 58 minutes - using just six tankers and one fill site. We have included a few photos from the drill and will post a full summary in a few weeks. Instructors for the seminar were Mark Davis and Alan Butsch.
Many thanks to the folks at SOVFD for the excellent logisitical support that they provided for the seminar - the food was great, the facility was great, and participants were a pleasure to work with.
We are also pleased to report that the seminar's T-shirt and hat raffle raised enough money for the 35th brick in the NFFF Walk-Of-Honor at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland!
South Onondaga's Tanker 5 - 2,500 gallons of pure water supply support delivery.
First-arriving crews hustle to get the first dump tank (3,000 gal) set-up before the 5-minute mark was hit.
Navarino FD's tanker dumps its water after arriving as part of the first tanker task force.
South Onondaga's Engine 2 (1,250 gpm) got a real workout as the only fiill site pumper. It drafted from a stream through 20-ft of hard suction hose and a floating strainer.
Sentinal Heights' tanker gets ready to dump its 2,000 gallons of water.
A few of the jet siphons were controlled using a gated wye placed on one of Engine 6's 2-1/2" discharges.
The three-dump tank set-up was able to sustain a 1,000 gpm flow for just shy of one hour.
Engine 6 eventually used three suction intakes to support the operation: two 6-inch lines and one 2-1/2-inch suction line.
