Fire Apparatus – United States vs. Europe (2016)
fireapparatusmagazine.com
fireapparatusmagazine.com
It's interesting, I think. I think it's a combination of different requirements and different cultural outlook on things.
The US is a vast, open country, mostly plains. Even where people are concentrated, our cities are mostly post-car suburban sprawl. When you have a lot of money, land is abundant, and car transportation is assumed, there’s basically no reason to care about wasting lots of horizontal space with careless design.
Thus the US has less spatial discipline than anywhere else in the world. Nearly everything here is the architectural equivalent of an electron app burning through gigs of ram to display text, because no one cares.
This is “normal” and what people here are used to, which means a lot of people genuinely like it. I think it has a significant influence on culture; among other things, it makes us less sensitive to waste in general, and more prone to think of things as single-use and disposable.
> among other things, it makes us less sensitive to waste in general, and more prone to think of things as single-use and disposable.
I think this is mostly down to consumerism. Companies made a lot of money off of the wealthy American middle class in the late 20th century (and up to now) and convincing them to work more to spend more on cheap, disposable things was/is immensely lucrative. I’m sure in some indirect way, wasting space only helps reinforce the notion that waste in general is okay, but I don’t see it as a primary driver.
To that end, does anyone know of any organized initiatives to get people to move away from disposable plastic junk (often imported from China or some other place with abhorrent track records for environment, working conditions, political repression, etc) and toward a less consumerist culture (fewer more expensive possessions that we mend when they break rather than throwing them away)?
There is, but not obvious: the effect can be seen in Silicon Valley where it takes forevery to get anywhere because you need to drive a long distance to get to your destination because it is so far away.
Long distances make for congestion when cars are the main method of transportation (also: see LA).
Subways (and cyckling) scale a lot better. See Paris/London or Tokyo or Amsterdam/Copenhagen.
As an Australian living in USA I am often surprised by how long it takes to walk a distance that looks like not very much on a map.
Even when compared to places like Canada and Australia? Canada's population density is 4 people/km2, Australia is 3 people/km2 and the USA is 36 people/km2.
That said, as an Australian visiting the Netherlands (508 people/km2), one of the first things that caught eye was the residential garbage disposal. In the Netherlands you don't have single house bins that are picked up house by house. Instead they cart their kitchen garbage bags out to communal bins in the street. Those communal bins look like this: https://utrechtselect.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/recycleb... They are small on the surface because the bin is under ground.
It's more efficient in so many ways. They aren't just saving space in the street - the house doesn't need storage space for a weeks worth of garbage. And being the Netherlands, the weeks worth garbage is separated into 4 recycling types. And the garbage truck doesn't have to stop at each house, but rather just once per street.
If you want to see what spatial discipline looks like, check out Japan. I've always been impressed by Boston's ramification into side streets and back alleys where interesting shops, bars, and restaurants can be found. But a Japanese city ramifies a couple of iterations deeper: the side streets have side streets, the back alleys have back alleys. And they are littered with family-owned restaurants, tiny bars where you can have a conversation (unlike American bars where you have to shout to be heard over the sportsball game on every TV and the entire bar screaming when a score is made), and specialty shops of every sort. The shop you're interested in may be on the fourth, fifth, or tenth floor of a building. Any square meter that can be converted to retail space, will be. Train stations play host to entire subterranean strip malls. It's nuts. It's kind of cyberpunk. Or rather, cyberpunk borrowed from the aesthetics that blossomed on Asian city design constraints, particularly those of Japan, Hong Kong proper, and Kowloon Walled City.
An American-style 100-foot turntable ladder [3] might have a 5.8m wheelbase and a 12m overall length, whereas a typical European 32-meter ladder is more like a 4.8m wheelbase and 10m overall length [4].
Prior to 2017, London's fire brigade only operated 32m ladders - which can only reach the 10th floor of a tower block - because at the time of purchase, the longer ladders on the market would have struggled to navigate London's streets.
LFB recently got some 64m ladders [1] (to reach the 20th floor) after an awful fire in a 24-storey tower block which killed a lot of people. Surprisingly, the new ladder trucks aren't actually that much bigger in terms of wheelbase - but they're twice the weight, have four axles instead of 2, and the telescoping ladder has 7 sections instead of the usual 4/5.
[1] https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/news/2021-news/november/londo... [2] https://www.magirusgroup.com/de/en/serving-heroes/deliveries... [3] https://1641088.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/1641088... [4] https://www.magirusgroup.com/de/en/serving-heroes/deliveries...
It's a story about committing to one reasonable strategy (remain in place, don't evacuate tall residential buildings but instead design and build tall structures so that all plausible fires will be contained and can be fought inside) but then deciding implementation of that strategy is too expensive so you won't bother (these materials are cheaper, and look nicer, so too bad that now the building has no fire integrity).
Unfortunately, despite originally announcing it will "implement in full" any and all recommendations from the investigation into Grenfell, the Tory government decided that actually the recommendations made (e.g. "Personal evacuation plans" for the disabled - figure out what that nice lady in a wheelchair living up on 18 is supposed to do when the elevators are out of action during a fire) were expensive so they just won't.
The main Grenfell story IMHO is about Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex obtaining fraudulent certifications saying their flammable cladding products weren't flammable, and a light-touch regulatory system letting them get away with it. And the TMO attempting a refurbishment where they only had budget for the flammable ACM - so anyone who bid on the work with safe materials was knocked out of the contest.
I'd love to see this sort of comparison on other jobs you'd think would be the same. I'm also curious what differences there are in other parts of the world like Asia or South America.
See:
* https://www.firehouse.com/safety-health/ppe/helmets/article/...
Podcast that discusses things:
> The battle over the traditional fire helmet and what I’ll call the “Eurohelmet” is growing, as some U.S. departments are making the switch. It’s hard to nail down exactly why firefighters are unhappy about wearing the new style helmets. After all, they’re safer, they weigh less, and they offer better eye protection.
* https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/personal-protectiv...
But as the sign in the kitchen in Backdraft says about the fire service:
150 years of tradition unimpeded by progress.
The department I worked for did not care what helmet a person used as long as it was NFPA approved for firefighting. We had one Lieutenant with 20+ years of service who switched to the Euro style and he absolutely loved it. Said it was the most comfortable helmet he ever wore.
I can tell you a traditional American style helmet is very uncomfortable and when I was in full bunker gear with an air pack on, the back of my helmet always hit my air tank not allowing me to look up very well.
During training when we would have to repel we had a safety belay attached to the back of the class 3 harness. As soon as you went over the side the belay rope would push the back of the helmet up causing the head to push forward (chin to chest). Just completely uncomfortable and awkward. You had to spend a few seconds to get adjusted so you could focus on the actual training and getting yourself unfucked from the belay rope that wouldn't be there in an actual situation.
This fognail video was quite interesting also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe_V7aLyzM8
Interesting (I think) aside: 'fire engines' is a remnant of (and now 'fire' is a redundant qualifier) garden watering systems being called 'engines', pumping systems (and earlier still all sorts of mechanisms) generally.
What we call these things in my (rural California) district:
* Engine - has pump, 500-800 gal tank.
* "Brush" or Wildland unit - 4wd, 300 gals, smaller pump
* Water Tender - ~2000 gals, has a pump but no hoses other than a supply hose
* Squad unit - extraction tools (eg "jaws of life"), saws, lift bags, etc. Usually no water, though we have one squad with a small pump-less tank operated by air pressure.
* Rescue unit - basically a work truck with equipment for water rescue and technical rescue (inflatable boat, ropes, harnesses, pulleys, etc).
There is a lot of variability in US fire departments. The kit for a city department is very different from the kid for a rural district like mine.
The result is sprawl and unwalkable neighborhoods. Every household needs two cars.
The developers and their politician friends talk up high rise, but you can get a bunch more density with narrow streets and separations and housing that people want to live in
Is this something that's done in the US as well?
(I'm pretty sure the answer to your question is "no", but I didn't get a firm source for that).
But most US brigades are specifically civilian.
Basically a relic of history, they developed separately from the rest of the system.
Cities/counties/local municipalities tend to provide firefighting services to residents.
The National Guard will participate in fighting wildfires, but there are firefighters employed by the land management agencies that take the lead role.
The UK Fire Service last took nationwide industrial action in 2002 and the strike lasted for two days. In 2004 there were a handful of wildcat actions that fell out of the the 2002/2003 industrial action, however 999 emergency calls were being responded to by staff involved in the "strikes".
The Green Goddess fleet thankfully isn't used now and in their place third party operators now operate the same modern fire apparatus from the same fire stations in the event of an all out strike.
> despite getting double the amount of the armed service personnel covering said strike
For the benefit of anyone's doubt about what UK firefighters are paid, see this page here:
https://www.fbu.org.uk/pay-rates/pay-settlement-2021
Let's just say it's not a very highly paid job when you consider the risks attached to the role.
These are the pay scales offered by the British Army (see the section on Soldier Pay and Officer Pay):
https://apply.army.mod.uk/what-we-offer/army-life/benefits
Trying to compare armed forces pay with civil emergency services pay is like comparing apples and oranges. If you're in the forces your accommodation, food and many other expenses are included in your compensation.
I feel this is yet another ill informed divide and conquer comment.