Fire Engines Photos

So what is this van used for?

Added by Richard Aston on 17 July 2014.

Detection, Identification and Monitoring (DIM)
The DIM vehicle and equipment have been provided through the Mass Decontamination capability of the New Dimension programme to enable:

•Detection of a range of chemical or radiological hazardous substances.
•Identification of hazardous substances whether chemical, biological or radiological.
•Monitoring of the levels of contaminate present and to establish and maintain cordons
The vehicle is a 5.2 tonne Iveco Daily which carries a suite of specialist equipment for use by HFRS DIM trained officers. The equipment includes:

•Zellweger Impact Pro multi gas monitors
•Rados RDS 200 universal radiation survey meters
•Hazmat ID chemical identifier
•Hapsite Smart gas chromatograph mass spectrometer
•Exploranium GR 135 radiation identifier
•Panasonic Toughbook laptop
All this equipment is field portable and can be taken into the hot zone at an incident and operated by DIM trained officers wearing suitable personal protective equipment (PPE).



Added by Danny Jones on 18 July 2014.

Danny, thanks for the info. I guess this will be the least used van in Greater Manchester!

Added by Richard Aston on 18 July 2014.

An unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate) sign of the times, aye. I like the fact it has no identification, slogans or advertising written all over it,

Added by Pav on 18 July 2014.

Danny - thanks for an exceptionally comprehensive response!

These DIM units look like a very good idea, and actually seem to more or less exactly reflect the capabilities of the German "ABC" vehicles, which have been assigned regionally to fire services for the past ten or fifteen years - and are quite often manned by volunteers.

My question is - do you know how many of these DIM units are there in the UK and how are they distributed around the country? The German model is to make an ABC unit available to respond anywhere within 30 minutes, except in rural areas, and I wonder if the UK has established similar parameters?

Finally, a more trivial question. Why are these painted white instead of good old fire engine red?

Added by Rob Johnson on 19 July 2014.

As part of the New Dimension mass decontamination facilities, a total of eighteen DIM units have been located on a regional basis in England and Wales and the trial units have been replaced by the final capability teams. Information from the Roger Mardon website.

I am guessing that white is a far cheaper colour which the vans leave the factory in rather pay for a red spray.....

Added by Danny Jones on 06 September 2014.

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