Impact
Support Faster Fire Response
In the wildfire race, every second counts. Traditional methods involve variables, leading to uncertain fill rates. Wildland Fire Hydrants revolutionize, ensuring rapid response. With our 4-inch systems, we fill tenders in under 5 minutes. Imagine reducing fill times from 30 to 5 minutes—a firefighting game-changer.
Several Methods to Fill Water Tenders and Fire Engines
Portable Water Pumps
In the Portable Water Pumps approach, using 2 and 3-inch portable water pumps capable of pumping between 225-325 GPM, typically mandates a pump operator and/or vehicle driver. The tender pulls in, the hose is connected, and the vehicle tank is filled at a net rate of 170-245 GPM. The filling process takes 8-15 minutes for a single vehicle, with an additional 3-6 minutes allocated for preparation and vehicle movement, resulting in a total fill time of 10-20+ minutes for a single tender.
Applying the same method to an engine filling scenario would necessitate 2-3 minutes of filling time, coupled with an extra 2-4 minutes for preparation and vehicle movement, summing up to a total time of 4-7 minutes to fill a single engine.
Self Drafting
Self Drafting is a time-consuming process where a vehicle, equipped with an onboard pump for self-drafting or tank filling, needs to get close to the water source. The driver or crew member must lay the hose line from the vehicle to the water source, a task that could take 10-15 minutes. Achieving a fill rate of 200 GPM may necessitate an additional 10-15 minutes of filling time. Furthermore, disconnecting and stowing the hose line might consume an additional 10-15 minutes. Altogether, the total time for this process could range from 30-45 minutes to fill a single tender.
Applying the same method to an engine filling scenario would involve identical setup and disconnect times, with a fill time of 3 minutes, resulting in a total time of 20+ minutes to fill a single engine.
Fire Hydrants
Fire hydrants come in many sizes and GPM capabilities, the standard Hydrant is 500 GPM, and systems are subject to loss of pressure with prolonged or overuse. Hydrants normally require city infrastructure, a fixed position. Operates much the same way as portable pumps. but because we are typically working in rural areas to help combat wildland fires, hydrants are not typically readily available. That's why we created the Wildland Fire Hydrants.
WLFH Is More Efficient
Wildland Fire Hydrant Systems
Wildland Fire Hydrant Systems use 4-inch pumps with considerably more hose than self-drafting units carry to enable far more access points to the water resource, the ability to harness the power of multiple 580 GPM pumps via manifold for a 1,000+ GPM net flow, with 4-inch Overhead Fill Towers allowing for tender filling times of less than 5 minutes, including vehicle movements.
Engine filling time would be much the same as portable pump methods with the exception of vehicle counts; Wildland Fire Hydrant Systems could fill more than a dozen engines in the same 7 minutes a single Engine fills with a portable pump. However, a Wildland Fire Hydrant System would require more area for vehicle filling stations, which could easily be set up where the vehicle lines would form.
Some Wildland Fire Hydrant Systems are able to be operated without crew members; tender drivers and engine crew are capable of operating them, and they already do. However, some configurations should have a dedicated crew member to maintain efficiency and viability; larger configurations would require 2 crew members to operate for the most efficient fill times.
It should be noted that a Wildland Fire Hydrant System operating at Hose Flow Volume, with continuous flow and the appropriate discharge configuration, is capable of filling more vehicles in less time than any other method. Wildland Fire Hydrants are by no means disparaging current methods or procedures of filling vehicles, nor do we say that Wildland Fire Hydrants can replace any current methods, or that Wildland Fire Hydrants are required at every fire. In some situations, it is simply not required, but in a situation where it is, there is no replacement, there is no substitute for the capabilities Wildland Fire Hydrant Systems provide to the firefighters; the few systems that could be considered comparable would struggle to keep pace and be cost-prohibitive in comparison.