The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

If you have an emergency - especially a medical one - whoever is closest is the right person to respond, be it fire department, ambulance, or police. 3 to 10 minutes in an emergency can make a huge difference. Like it or not, a drunk homeless person is generally a health and/or safety issue. Coming in trucks that they would usually drive also means that if there happens to be a fire call while they are out helping someone with possible first aid, they can leave from the scene, keeping more people safe. For auto accidents, sometimes the fire truck is one of the better things to have at the scene for visibility purposes.

I would also like to add that many - but not all - fire departments also drive ambulances.

Does it cost money? Sure. But if it helps folks, I'm for it. There are other options, but I'm not convinced they will cost less money (more ambulances of different sorts, more manpower for first responders positioned in places across cities, and so on... all have their costs).

I'd fully recommend actually looking into the reasons for some of this, and what other options are for similar outcomes.

You're not wrong, but it's more that they are in a position to help and the city doesn't seem to want to have another organization deal with the homeless. They're not exactly gunning for the role of taking care of the homeless.

>There's a city-specific reason why San Francisco has stuck with wood rather than swap over to metals, and the answer lies in looking up. The high-voltage cables and wires that guide the city's (oft-maligned) public transport system Muni, and trolley cars crisscross above nearly every street, mean that ladders made of conductive elements are generally just too dangerous to use.

>"I think there's a lot of fire departments that went aluminum and wish they could go back to wood but it's too expensive," Braun says. "There's only two ladders manufacturers in the states—and we're one of 'em. We only make our own ladders and can barely even keep up with what we have."

The helmets look exactly the same except the ones in the UK don't have brims on the back.

Having a volunteer fire department does not mean there isn't pride.

In fact, it can be argued the opposite -- Volunteer departments mean the citizens take enough pride in their brigade that they get directly involved in it, rather than farming it out as a civil service.

In the city that I live in a few miles away with a paid department, the firehouse next door does like 6,000 calls a year with a 2005 truck with 200k miles on it.

This is not true, depending on timeline. It's true of the production rate kilns, and as you say, it doesn't matter for construction lumber, which is why they do it.

But assuming 3+ years to dry your 3x3" board, even doing it in a kiln at a 6 month rate (or whatever) would be a vast improvement, and would basically not bow or check. Again, there is actually a vast amount of research on drying schedules vs defects and how to optimize for whatever you want for a given wood species.

As for kiln size, again, solar kilns are quite trivial to build for basically any size or shape, and can easily be temperature controlled for something like this. (and they could easily build a kiln in the space they have shown in that article)

To whit: I've built a solar kiln in maryland for 30+ ft boards before, and cost of materials was < $1000. (I used to buy lumber from a guy who was responsible for handling downed trees for some cities in northern virginia, and he used to saw and sell the lumber. He did the nail removal, etc)

"Even if the wood was kiln dried, it would still have to acclimatizate for months or years before it would be at a stable 13% humidity of San Francisco."

Why? You can just stop drying it at 13% (instead of the 7-8% that is normal).

This is just a random appeal to authority. If you would like to be constructive, please be constructive.

First, there is one person doing this. Or was. It was Jerry Lee, who recently retired. He did it for 30 years.

In fact, for giggles, i reached out this morning, and Jerry Lee says he is not an expert by any means in any of this. He was just a pattern maker who thought he could be helpful. He had no particular expertise in this when he started, and he would argue he is in fact, not an expert.

When I asked, he said they just didn't need to do it faster.

So it turns out no, they aren't magical experts trained in the artisanal art of ladder making with information passed down from the ages, and no, there are no magical reasons that only the wood cognoscenti have thought of. Sorry.

They just use the forestry handbook data and info like everyone else!

this describes quite accurately the work of many people maintaining computer systems

But yeah utilizing their downtime is smart. And you're gonna build a damn good ladder and not cut corners if you know you're going to be standing on it.

There was a time when aluminum bikes were new but before the parts likely to bend were replaceable where many a bike owner had to buy a new frame due to misadventure. You can only bend aluminum once, then you’re done. When they started making cogsets with more than six gears they went with axles about half a centimeter wider, and you had a similar conversation. You can have the longer axles but you can’t change your mind after. They have to bend the stays slightly and there is no going back after that (and let me tell you, the mechanic got really quiet when they did the bend. You want to get it just right and every bike and every frame size is different. You pull until you feel the metal just start to give and just after that is your 5mm)

Steel frames could often be rebent. But they’re heavier and they don’t like moisture. And their strength to weight ratio is only about the same as wood. Probably also bad options for firefighters.

From what I understand every master craftsman has a small quantity of tools they either made themselves or at least modified to purpose. Tools with bits added on or ground off (eg, wrenches ground thin for tight spots, or magnetized).

I class jigs as a separate category but I have no handy parallel for software.

0. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/httpblogssci...

1. http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-caltech-glassbl...

2. https://news.usc.edu/114014/uscs-scientific-glassblower-lets...

They're nonconductive fiberglass.

They're stronger than wood, lighter than wood, don't need to be oiled/varnished, don't require cutting down old-growth trees, and aren't susceptible to moisture damage.

You can buy them exhaustively tested, mass produced, in whatever quantities you require for a couple hundred dollars - probably an order of magnitude less than these artisanal wooden ladders.

Did you read the comment you're replying to? I said very specifically "SF does have some good reasons for sticking with their wooden ladders". And note that I said "a somewhat significant factor" NOT "the only factor" or even "the biggest factor".

In fact, I did read the article, and I see nothing that contradicts the suggestion that tradition is "a somewhat significant factor" in their continued use of wooden ladders.

Here lies a pretty cool article about a pretty cool practice demonstrating how the SFFD maintains their own equipment, to their own specifications (rather than an approximation thereof), and for less money than simply farming it out to a vendor. There might even be an applicable (to HN) lesson here on the value of employing an in-house toolmaker, whatever your profession may be.

And then there's this lot here in the comments that is completely in arms against it because le Hackernews is obviously an expert Fire Brigade, or just has an allergic reaction to civilian government agencies maintaining their own equipment versus joining the throwaway consumerist cult the rest of world has acquiesced to.

"[wood ladders] don't conduct electricity like aluminum or wet fiberglass ladders do."

"'Aluminum or fiberglass, when it gets too hot, it gets soft; it will actually fold over without any warning,' he said. 'Wood takes hours to fail completely -- enough time for a firefighter to see it burning and get off it.'"

"Once an aluminum or fiberglass ladder cracks, it usually has to be replaced. Wooden ones can always be repaired, he said."