Water Handling and Filling Stations

General Discussion
#1

Questions about Water Handling and Filling Stations

Is water handling an in-house support function, where an agency’s own people operate the pumping of water into the different tanked vehicles?

I reviewed the S-211 Water Handling course, and it didn’t seem to address any types of “Filling Stations”, it seemed more geared towards a single vehicle or a few vehicle fills per hour and more of a direct attack type scenario.

Are Filling Stations used?

I’m not referring to a line coming off a fire hydrant or a water pump filling vehicles out of a portable tank. I mean a stand alone portable unit capable of remote pumping and tanking/filling hundreds of smaller tanked vehicles (500 gallons or less) per hour or multiple dozens of larger tanked vehicles (2500 gallon or more) per hour.
Goal is to fill tanked vehicles of 2500 gallons or less in under three minutes, larger tanked vehicles in under five minutes. A unit that is not static, can disassemble and reassemble in a couple hours. A unit which can be configured to any filling scenario requirements from 20,000 gallons tanked per hour to 150,000 gallons tanked per hour.

Are there already “lots of those things” in use?
Is there any need for a filling station as described?

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#2

I’m not really sure about exactly what the question is.

Is this an invention?

Do you have fire experience?

Where is all this water coming from? Many times the choice is between a soda straw in a tiny stream, or driving back into town where there is a hydrant. Not much water to be slurped out where fires burn, and fires move on from one place to another.

They do have such a device, it is called a fire engine. It comes with a crew who can set up the suction and fill other vehicles, and break it down and move on when done.

Also, sometimes they do not necessarily like to fill vehicle tanks at maximum rate. When it gets full, the slam of water against the roof of the tank and such, can damage stuff.

Apologies if I misread the question.

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#3

Yes they are out there , how many and how often requested, not sure
North zone fallers had this unit set up at Cherry lake on the Rim fire

Seen several in use in the Klamath and Plumas on fires, ( Orleans bridge, Forks of Salmon, ( Butler Fire) Humbug valley ( Chips fire)

Simple version was a large volume Honda trash pump mounted on a small trailer with a elevated boom to top fill tenders ( a couple guys had rc controlled booms and remote start pumps)

Or even a trailered tender trailer left in a spot, then the driven Tender would make the runs shuttling to it

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#4

One thing I’d be cautious of is the max filling rate of the apparatus you intend to fill. I’ve seen warnings on fiberglass and poly tanks not to fill at rates exceeding a few hundred gallons a minute, not the rates of 1000 or so GPM cited in the original post. Plumbing systems, venting, and strength of the tank itself are all limiting factors, and trying to force too much too fast may be damaging, and void tank warranties where applicable. So even if the mechanical equipment was there to fill faster, AND the water was there to supply, it may not be feasible to fill that fast in many situations.

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#5

To fill a 2,500 gallon truck in 3" you would need a 6" diameter pump minimum with less than 10’ of vertical lift

That equals 833.33 GPM, gives a maximum capacity of 50,000 gallons per hour.

A better way would be a 500GPM pump filling 12,000 gallon drop tanks with an automatic float switch to a pump that has Auto start/stop enabled.

Keep in mind a 2.5" NH fire hose is rated at 250GPM. So you get an idea of the kind of infrastructure required to fill a 2500 gallon truck in 3min time.

Large construction jobs sites can have as many as 4 12,000 gallon drop towers that are fed by 8-12" HDPE pipe from multiple sources. It it not uncommon to use 100,000-300,000 gallons a day on construction sites moving 20,000-40,000 cubic yards of dirt.

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#6

Thank you for the response;

I would not call it an invention, everything is off the shelf pretty much, pumps, hoses, manifolds, valves and overheads.

I do have some Fire experience, but not actually fighting fires, I was filling tankers and tenders via overhead, very basic setup.

Water sources are like you say, kinda get what you get, but this setup would require a water source that could support the desired flow. So lakes, rivers mainly, you could use frac tanks but those only hold so much and you would need a sufficient supply line of tankers to do that. In my mind you need a good natural water source, but, depending on how desperate for water, it can be done with storage tanks.

Fire Engines as fillers works, but I’m referring to something that could fill numbers of vehicles or volume pumping that doesn’t compare.

When relocating the set up can breakdown and pack up in less than an hour and goes right back together just as quickly.

My apologies for not explaining it adequately as well, but it’s a high volume low pressure system, doesn’t exceed 30 psi, vehicle operators have hand valves to start and stop the flow, 2 1/2 inch line fills at 200-250 gpm, no water hammer due to low pressure system. Hose connections are 2, 2 1/2 and 3 inch , overheads are 4 inch.
I would further describe it as anything over 1000-1500 GPM would be for tanker /tender filling via overhead which allows for a greater flow.

I realize the majority of incidents would not require this, but in a large incident with a lot of tanked vehicles or a complex situation with multiple incidents in close proximity or where the water source has limited access and maximum tanking is required due to the amount of vehicle traffic overwhelming the access point, or any situation where the water needs to be acquired in vast amounts or needs to just be quicker turn around time or a vehicle wait line to fill is just not acceptable.

I also would not describe this as an initial response unit, or a direct attack unit.
I hope I’m not making it more confusing, I can talk and explain it a lot better than in this medium and not having the experience in the fire fighting industry my terminology perhaps is not correct either.

Appreciate your questions, thank you.

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#7

Drptrch,

Thank you, yes, Northzonefallers is very close to what I’m referring to, although our setup could better them with volume but less head reach, and our entire setup doesn’t cost as much as their pump does. We also R/C’d our pumps and flow valves as well so single operator has volume and flow control. They only issue I have with trailer mounted pumps is that sometime you can’t get that trailer to the water, whereas if I can walk to the water, I can access it,

Again, Thank You.

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#8

Eric,

Agreed, and thank you. Must be cautious when filling a vehicle with fiberglass or poly tanks, blow the tank on an Engine and it will be the last day you work.

Any pumping over 250 GPM requires multiple units to be getting filled, 1,000 GPM would be used to fill 4-5 vehicles via 2.5 hose connection simultaneously.

Greater volumes are for filling via overheads, ours can handle 2,000 GPM but when filling steel tanked Tenders and Tankers, we use 1,250 GPM as our fill rate and even then you don’t start at 1,250, you must get the tank partially filled before you start dropping 1,250 a minute into it.

Although we didn’t design it, the hose connections kind of have an inherent pressure safety in that the system is low pressure, if it pressures up due to high volume, the pressure reduces what the pump is pumping, reducing the volume and pressure. Not that I would use that as a safety mechanism during pumping, I would rather limit the pumps mechanically to pumping the 200-250 GPM per vehicle or less if 2 inch connection or greater if 3 inch.

Again, Thank You

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#9

Nik Branson, North Zone Fallers, Inc.

Our trailer mounted high volume, low pressure pumps have been in use for about 12 years now. We have the ability to fill up to 4 water tenders at a time. Usually there are only need for two trucks at one time due to lack of trucks and the speed in which we can fill them. Our pumps fill two trucks simultaneously in 10 minutes. We were filling on average 118 trucks a day on the Lava fire this season, and that was with only one pump. Our pumps can be relocated in less than an hour, with no rehab work to be done when we leave. Our 5 foot fish screens insure that the water source is undisturbed and ecologically safe. We have filled tens of thousands of trucks over the years including private, and agency vehicles. We have even used our pumps to fill portable tanks and extremely long hose lays without a single incident. We have done the cost analyst, and if you have more that two trucks on an incident it saves money to order a pump instead of a third truck. This is based on the number of loads that two trucks can deliver with the pump vs. the number of loads that three trucks can deliver filling themselves. I believe that these pumps are an essential part of the fire fighting efforts because you are only as efficient as your biggest bottleneck. Our pumps eliminate the water bottleneck.

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#10

Seen the portable high volume pump on a trailer thing next to a river quite a few times, in the Mount Hood/Warms Springs and outside of Missoula about 20 years ago. It certainly helped us out.

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#11

Hi Nik,

Thanks for your response,
This turned into a book, my apologies.

If you don’t mind, who are you signed up thru contracting wise and what do they classify you as?
What was the daily rate for your setup last year?
In your time out there, how many others have you come across doing what your doing?

My take is there are not near as many doing this as there should be, or not near enough setups. We just had a posting on here stating, “20 years ago I seen one and it was helpful.” WHAT? I can only assume a veteran firefighter, in 20 years of service, has only seen one! I’m willing to bet there are firefighters with 20 years service that have seen none.

Obviously you have been at this a number of years but have you ran into the situation where an agency official or c/o just simply doesn’t believe your stated capabilities, and the conversation is over before it even starts?

I agree with you 100% on the positives of a high volume pump and what it can do for tanked vehicle efficiencies, what I don’t understand is why high volume filling stations are not employed more often? I have spoken with different Agency personnel and it was shocking how as I tried to explain it, they never heard of such, or “that’s impossible, you can’t do that!” or “we used to do that but we just don’t anymore, I don’t know why tho” to my favorite “we have lots of those things and we don’t need you trying to make them better” and a week later an incident wipes out thousands of houses, and the news crews are showing lines of tanked vehicles waiting to fill with water. Removing that wait line increases the tanked vehicles efficiency considerably.

I would describe it as spending 500k a day for tanked vehicles but not spend 1500 a day to make them 20% more efficient. Everything I have viewed is along the mantra of “when the water is slow, the fire will grow” yet the slowest most inefficient way to fill them is just how it’s always been done and its not going to change just because you can do it better.
Not that a filling station is always the answer, but when you need massive amounts of water in a short time period, a filling station that can tank massive amounts is about the only answer.

Granted, I am new to this industry, and I understand the whole “you need to prove yourself”, but how do you change the institutional thinking that is outdated or just missing the point?

I have seen some photos of old setups that took up an acre of land and required a day to construct, I can understand why a setup like that went away, but a small set up, no footprint, safer to pump out of a natural resource than having numerous vehicles self drafting or using fire fighting equipment to fill when a pump can free up that engine to go fight fires.

The few fires I did work, the vehicle drivers were very happy with the set up, so much easier on them, especially the older drivers! We have all seen how the workforce is getting older, seen 70 year olds out there driving tenders.

For the record, I am no longer signing up with any agencies, the politics of it is incredible. My first fire our ability to fill tankers so quickly helped save a neighborhood of some 70 houses, the gratefulness of the residents I will always remember, it’s what drove me to keep improving the capabilities from 15k gallons tanked per hour to 150k tanked per hour. Im not an expert on how to fight a wildfire, but I can make water dance to any tune, as I’m sure you can as well.

But I couldn’t just move on without at least trying to have a conversation on the subject, I am still a tax payer, perhaps the thinking can change, and next time I see a huge fire on the news wiping out a community I won’t also see the lines of vehicles waiting for their turn to be filled. I can’t imagine what the folks who lost their homes and businesses thought when they seen those same lines, if that fire engine didn’t have to wait in line, could it have saved my home?

Regards