Usually, the first few minutes of a good working fire are the most challenging for the engineer. Crews are pulling attack lines from the pumper and screaming for water, usually as soon as the hose clears the bed. Simultaneously, the engineer is doing everything possible to satisfy the water demands while making the supply line hookup to assure that the water supply is uninterrupted.
- Being preconnected eliminates having to remove the hose from the compartment or hosebed which, in turn, saves in set-up time. Only the hydrant connection needs to be made.
- Using the 50-foot long soft suction eliminates having to make a near-perfect apparatus placement at the hydrant. The engineer simply spots the pumper in the general area of the hydrant, pulls the free end of the preconnected line to the hydrant, and makes the hookup.Unlike the short soft suctions, if a spot is made too close to the hydrant and causing a kink after it is charged, the hose can easily be straightened out. This is possible because the longer line has more room to expand or grow under pressure. More times then not, the kink will be removed on its own after the line is fully charged.
The key to avoiding kinks in a long soft suction line is to make wide bends whenever slack in the hose needs to be taken up.
The preconnected long soft suction line is the answer to troublesome hydrant spotting and is one more way of making the firefighter’s job a little easier.
The photos below demonstrate the deployment of the long soft suction preconnect.
Paul Shapiro is director of Fire Flow Technology. He is a nationally recognized instructor on large-flow water delivery. He is also a retired engineer from the City of Las Vegas (NV) Fire Department. He has authored numerous articles for fire trade magazines. He has been in the fire service since 1981 and is author of Layin’ the Big Lines and produced the first in a series of videos on large-flow water delivery. He is available to answer questions; he can be reached at (702) 293-5150 or Layinline @aol.com.