The early days of fighting fires with beaters, buckets, and knapsacks are long gone and while slipping a tank onto the back of a tray truck was the popular choice for many years, CFA’s fleet has evolved dramatically over the past 80 years.
When CFA formed, the organisation inherited a mixed range of former war surplus trucks but most firefighting trucks in 1950s were Austins, the tankers being the work horse of the rural fleet for many years holding 1800 litres.
The Austin pumper followed for urban brigades, which had a front-mounted pump and 1592 litres per minute capacity.
CFA head of fleet and protective equipment Danny Jones said that CFA’s financial focus in the 1950s was purchasing trucks and trailer units.
“By 1960, CFA had 773 vehicles in its fleet – 516 of them in rural brigades,” Mr Jones said.
“Small pumpers were then built which included more ladders, hoses, and larger pumps,” he said.
Small 4WD, agile Willys trucks were the forerunners to the current ultralights and slip-ons.
The small 4WD tankers enabled crews to get in ahead of the larger tankers to bushfires to help knock the fire down quickly.
Mr Jones said the size of our tankers and pumpers grew in capacity as new trucks became available, including those with diesel engines.
“CFA soon realised more types of vehicles were required for the variety of fire calls being attended,” he said.
“CFA started to manufacture a range of specialised vehicles to suit our diverse needs which have continued to evolve over the years.”
These included radio communication vans, hazmats, road accident rescue, high angle rescue, mine rescue, protective equipment, rehabilitation, salvage, lighting, telebooms, ladder platforms,
aerial pumpers, alpine and tracked vehicles, sand tankers, breathing apparatus vans, field operations vehicles, hose layers and educational units.
Today, most vehicles are twin cabbed, air conditioned and have comfortable seating compared to earlier vehicles.
Safety features such as rollover protection systems, heat shields, vehicle sprinklers, window curtains, and remote-control monitors are common.
Crew protection systems installed into CFA’s fleet was a major step in enhancing firefighter safety from 2006. Between 2011 and 2013, CFA also retrofitted the same crew protection systems to all existing pre-2006 tankers.
“This has been further extended over the years with all of CFA’s ultralight tanker fleet currently undergoing and retrofit program to install crew protection,” Mr Jones said.
“This technology received significant laboratory, simulation and real fire exposure testing,” he said.
“Retrofitting all our vehicles gives our members the best possible chance of survival in a burnover.”
The latest truck to join CFA’s firefighting fleet is the Ultra Heavy tanker which has the capacity to carry 10,000 litres of water – more than some of our water bombing fleet.
These trucks will greatly boost the CFA’s ability to fight fires in remote rural areas with open grasslands.
CFA’s progressive fleet department is always looking into new technology and prototypes to ensure that it has the most advanced and safest vehicles for its firefighters.
