Buy a red 3.5 ton van, install a back seat and a roof rack, put in a 800 LPM portable pump and some shelving for hose and small gear and you have a very low-cost but quite effective pumper for a village volunteer fire service. Two horns, one blue beacon, no frills - just a very practical plain and simple little truck!
There are around 20, 000 volunteer fire compamies in Germany, which literally means that almost every small village has a fire station. Even without any payroll expense, these small volunteer outfits have very limited budgets, which is why many of them have to rely on these extremely simple and inexpensive little trucks.
They usually get very few calls, and many of these Fords, Opels, VWs and Benzes serve the same company for thirty years or longer.
Water tanks have never been part of the specification of the light pumpers issued to volunteer companies in Germany in past years, but portable pumps have been very popular.
The view now in Germany is that a tank of less than 600 liters is dangerous. This is because the tank risks being emptied out before the hydrant or open water supply is connected, potentially endangering the team on the branch. Despite a DIN standard for a 10/6 pumper (which is a 7, 5 to 9 ton GVW truck), many authorities insist on an 800 or 1000 liter minimum tank size for the same reason.
But the 10/6 is a great deal more expensive than a Transit van - so many smaller volunteer outfits cannot afford to replace their older units very soon.
So I think we will continue to see some very old and maybe rather primitive trucks in volunteer service in Germany, simply because the cost of updating the fleet every 15 years or so is prohibitive.
It was like that in Japan. Sasebo, located 2 hours from Nagasaki, had 4 career stations, 3 of which had one appliance that carried water. All the other pumpers were dual combination, just pump and hose. All the volunteer stations were a single appliance, and just dual combinations. I don't remember seeing any vehicle fires, but the few brush fires I saw, all were fought by hooking up to a hydrant, supplying either a 2" or 2.5" attack hose. Most of which were fought from the street. I asked one of the workers on the base as to why their fire appliances off-base didn't have water tanks, and he said they were just too expensive. Besides, water seemed to rather available, by hydrant, pond, or cistern.
In the U.S. though, to be certified as a pumper, the appliance has to have a minimum of 300gal. Or run in combination with a tanker carrying a minimum of 300gal. It just boggles many volunteer firefighters here that a pumper overseas might not have a water tank.
The thing that amazes me, is that Germany is about 38% the size of the US, and has 20, 000 volunteer fire companies. The US has about 30, 000 fire companies, including both career and volunteer. How large is the typical village's population there, and how large is their response area? Would the above appliance be their only vehicle?
David: The really amazing statistic is that Germany has around one million volunteer firefighters for a population of 82 million total inhabitants. This means that about one in twenty of the male population between 16 and 60 are volunteer firefighters! If you think of a typical volunteer company as being around 40 members, thats one fire company for every 3, 000 citizens.
There are only approximately 100 career fire departments, and in most states cities with less than 100, 000 or even 150, 000 population are not required to have a full-time department.
So there is a huge difference. Some cities with around 100, 000 inhabitants have very a very large central fire station with as many as 150 volunteers assigned to them, and an extensive fleet of apparatus including all kinds of special purpose trucks, modules and trailers, plus several satellite stations in the suburbs - while small villages may have one van-type light pump like this Transit and maybe a dozen volunteers.
In most states fire departments are required to respond to structure fires with upwards of 16 fully qualified personnel. Therefore, in small communities, units may respond from several volunteer fire companies.
Bear in mind German towns and villages have been settled for many centuries, and the organization of fire protection goes back to the days of manual pumps and the local duck pond as the water source - never mind horse-drawn or motorized apparatus! So these volunteer departments literally used to include just about every able-bodied male in the community, and this tradition continues to this day.
I have talked to older volunteers in many small villages from time to time, who have never been to a structure fire in twenty years of volunteer service. A different world indeed.
That's pretty cool. I wish it was that way here in the US. It saddens me when I read of a volunteer dept being disbanded, in favor or a career staffed dept. Though rare, I've read of volunteer fire departments that have been disbanded, with the support of the local union, so the union can add members. I know of too many areas that can't afford a career dept, but a combination dept is discouraged. Even though economically, it is the best option for many areas, both rural and urban. Thanks for the information, I enjoyed reading it.
The combination department is pretty much the norm in France and some other European countries, with full-time members to crew the first due apparatus (and/or ambulance) and volunteers for the backup units - although of course the smaller towns are often all-volunteer.
Added by Rob Johnson on 01 August 2013.