BY WILLIAM C. PETERS
Reels have been used on fire apparatus for many years. In the early 1800s, a member of a New York volunteer fire company invented a lightweight, fast two-wheeled cart for carrying hose. These hose carts, commonly called “jumpers,” consisted of a hose reel mounted on an axle between two tall thin wheels that could be pulled easily by two or more firefighters. The reel was the whole apparatus.
Apparatus manufacturers built on this tradition with the addition of booster reels on pumpers and chemical wagons. These reels had to be manually rewound by handles attached to the reel, much like the steering wheel of a ship. Later, they were improved by adding a hand crank that engaged a gear set to allow the hose to be rewound.
Electric rewind reels are now used not only for hose but also for electrical cord, utility air hose, breathing air hose, and hydraulic rescue tool hoses.
The photos in this article illustrate some of the various uses of reels.
Photo 1. NFPA 1901, Standard for Automotive Fire Apparatus, states that hosebeds, compartments, or reels shall be supplied to accommodate 30 cubic feet of 21/2-inch or larger fire hose and two areas of 3.5 cu. ft. for 11/2-inch or larger preconnects. This engine used two reels instead of a hosebed for 21/2-inch hose.
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Photos 2 and 3. This engine uses four attack lines on reels—two in the forward compartments and two over the pump panels. Notice that they are all different color hose. The left side hoses are orange and red and the right side yellow and blue. The pump panel discharge valves are color-coded the same way to facilitate charging and shutting down lines by color designation.
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Photo 4. This unit has a horizontal reel for large-diameter hose (LDH). The reel capacity was 2,500 feet of five-inch hose. When rewinding hose on a reel, it is important to space the couplings out so that they’re not positioned on top of each other. This creates a “heavy” spot in the reel that affects hose playout.
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Photos 5 and 6. This unit holds 1,000 feet of five-inch LDH on a vertical reel, much like a turntable on an aerial apparatus. The work on this unit was done by members of the fire company. At the rear step, a large roller is installed to help deploy and rewind the hose smoothly. Notice the floodlight above the rear step, which will be very helpful during night operations. Note that some LDH manufacturers do not advocate carrying their hose on edge.
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Photo 7. A fairly large amount of one-inch forestry hose can be carried on a reel. On this unit, the desired amount of hose is deployed, then uncoupled and attached to the gated wye on the front bumper discharge.
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Photo 8. This is typical use of a front bumper-mounted one-inch booster line. With cab forward-type engines and a front grille, this becomes more difficult to accomplish. Some manufacturers have mounted a wide reel low in front of the radiator, and the hose rollers are mounted in the lower portion of the cab.
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Photo 9. This unit has a whole array of reels mounted to the front bumper extension. Two attack lines are center mounted, a hydraulic rescue tool reel is mounted to the left (blue), and an electrical cord is to the right.
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Photo 10. This electrical cord is conveniently mounted over the pump panel with a junction box attached. Notice the two NFPA required labels showing the length of the cord and the voltage and amperage. If you are specifying cord reels, keep in mind that NFPA 1901 says, “Power rewind cord reels spool area shall be visible to the operator during rewind operations or the reel spool shall be encapsulated to prevent the cord from spooling off the reel.” This particular reel is visible, but it might require a cover if the reel were located farther down in the well.
Photo 11. This pumper has a utility air hose (blue) and a hy-draulic rescue tool hose (orange) mounted above a standard booster reel in the rear step compartment. Note the use of a roll-up compartment door, which is more practical than hinged doors when reels are in use, and the roller spools on each side of the back edge of the body next to the compartment to help with hose deployment.
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Photo 12. This rescue unit has a combination cutter-spreader hydraulic rescue tool preconnected to a reel with a tread plate cover.
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Photo 13. This heavy-duty slide-out tray makes good use of “dead space” in the center of the body on this commercial-type rescue truck. Hydraulic rescue tools, hose reels, an hydraulic pump, and cribbing are all available for fast deployment at the scene of an emergency.
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Photo 14. This rescue unit uses space above the compartments on each side of the apparatus to mount reels. The reels play out from the top of the open compartment without taking up any valuable storage space. Electric, air, and hydraulic rescue tool reels are available on each side of the unit.
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Photos by Ron Jeffers.
WILLIAM C. PETERS recently retired after 28 years with the Jersey City (NJ) Fire Department, having served his last 17 years as battalion chief/supervisor of apparatus, with the responsibility of purchasing and maintaining the apparatus fleet. He served as a voting member of the NFPA 1901 apparatus committee for several years, representing apparatus users. He is the author of Fire Apparatus Purchasing Handbook (Fire Engineering 1994); two chapters on apparatus in The Fire Chief’s Handbook, Fifth and Sixth Editions (Fire Engineering, 1995); the instructional video Factory Inspections of New Fire Apparatus (Fire Engineering, 1998); and numerous apparatus-related articles. He is an advisory board member of Fire Engineering and the FDIC and lectures extensively on apparatus purchase and safety issues. Peters can be contacted through his Web site FireApparatusConsulting.com.
