- HALE PRODUCTS, INC. named Gary Ewers president of the Fire Suppression Group, responsible for group companies including those located in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania; Ocala, Florida; and Warwick, England. Most recently, he was in charge of worldwide marketing and sales for the group. Ron Ewers was named director of product management, responsible for global product management, new product development, and firefighting solutions. Previously, he was president of the Fire Suppression Group. Hale appointed John Kurish plant manager of its Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, facility. He will be responsible for manufacturing, production, planning, and scheduling and will report to Brian Bohunicky, vice president of operations.
- Once again, EMERGENCY ONE was the Official Sponsor of the Hands-On Training (H.O.T.) Program at the Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) in Indianapolis, Indiana, and FDIC West in Sacramento, California. Approximately 10,000 firefighters from around the country participate annually in H.O.T. Evolutions and Workshops, as well as Classroom Sessions at both conferences. “We are proud to help financially support this program,” said E-One Vice-President of Marketing Jay Johnson. “FDIC and Fire Engineering arrange and plan a tremendous operation with the H.O.T. Program.”
- FERRARA FIRE APPARATUS, INC. subjected its Inferno/Igniter chassis and fire body to crash testing using the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Structural Standards (R29), a benchmark for crash testing and safety in the commercial trucking industry.
- Roof strength tests involved placing 22,000-pound (10-metric-ton) weights (the standard’s apparatus cab vertical load criteria) plus an additional 4,400-pound weight on the roof of the cab. The roof supported the load without damage to the crew cab area.
- A frontal impact test simulating the impact of a head-on collision involved an impact load subjecting the front of the apparatus cab to forces of more than 127 percent of the R29 standard requirements. A 3,736-pound (1,698 kg) pendulum fell from 133.25 inches, producing a 5,746 kg-m impact into the cab’s front (an impact velocity of 18.2 mph). During the test, all cab doors remained closed during the impact but opened easily afterward; there was no passenger compartment intrusion, and no cab structural components failed.
- In a second roof strength test on the same cab, the roof was loaded with 65,979 pounds (33 metric tons), or 300 percent of the standard’s vertical load criteria. The cab roof successfully supported the weight, with no failure of the cab structure or mountings, no passenger compartment intrusion or degradation of occupant survival space, or any other structural failure.
- Finally, all 65,979 pounds were placed on the apparatus body (not required in the standard), which withstood the load. The testing took place at Ferrara Fire Apparatus, Inc. in Holden, Louisiana. A.K. Rosenhan, PE, CEng of Mississippi State University, supervised the testing.
- TEMPEST TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION has acquired an industrial/confined space blower product line from WANCO, INC. that will be marketed under the Tempest Sentry Ventilation Series brand for the fire service and industrial/rental markets. The products include gasoline- and electric-powered blowers for confined space and positive/ngative ventilation applications.
- MSA appointed Ronald N. Herring, Jr. general manager of its Safety Products Division. He will be responsible for all research and development, marketing, and manufacturing operations at MSA’s nine North American Safety Products Division locations. Previously, Herring was director of marketing for the division.
- SAFETY VISION, LP, celebrating its 10th anniversary as producer of mobile video surveillance technology, has named Doris Ringwald procurement administrator. She has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and an MBA from the University of Houston, Her professional profile includes contract negotiation, procurement, inventory management, and price management.
- The NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATION (NFPA)’s Fire Protection Research Foundation awarded the second annual William M. Carey Award to David T. Sheppard and Richard M. Lueptow, for their paper “Measuring and Calculating Sprinkler Water Distribution.” This paper introduces the input required for National Institute for Standards and Technology’s new Fire Dynamics Simulator version 2.0 to create customized spray patterns and shows the results of several simulator model runs. Sheppard is an engineer at the new Fire Research Laboratory of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Lueptow is associate professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern University.
- U.S. SMOKELESS TOBACCO COMPANY (USSTC) announced that in the first six months of its National Gator Donation Program, it awarded a total of 16 John Deere Trail Gator™ Utility Vehicles to emergency response organizations. Recipients of Trail Gators™ include the Texas Department of Public Safety, to which two vehicles were delivered to the department’s command center in Nacogdoches, which coordinated various local, state, and federal authorities involved in recovery efforts following the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. Other recipients include fire, rescue, and police departments in Illinois, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Washington, Georgia, Connecticut, Arizona, Tennessee, Nebraska, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
- The company is donating these vehicles on a rolling basis to state, county, and municipal emergency organizations. These can be paid or volunteer agencies or departments able to demonstrate how a Trail Gator™ would improve emergency res-ponse. Any interested emergency service organization that would like to apply to receive a vehicle should contact the program hotline at (203) 622-3368 or visit the corporate giving section of the USSTC Web site: www.ussmokeless.com.
- The DEFENSE GROUP INC. (DGI) participated in Operation Furies, a realistic counterterrorism response training drill conducted by the United States Marshals Service, the Alexandria (VA) Police Department, and the Alexandria (VA) Fire Department. The exercise took place near the United States District Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. About 400 emergency response personnel were involved in the exercise, representing the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Protective Service Police Department, the FBI Counter Terrorism Task Force, the Alexandria Police Department, the Alexandria Fire Department, the Alexandria Sheriff’s Office, and the United States Marine Corps Chemical Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF). The simulated scenario involved an overturned chemical tanker truck, coupled with a simulated chemical agent release inside the courthouse, ostensibly to disrupt the courtroom proceedings of one of the high-profile terrorists being kept at the Alexandria jail.
- The DGI team provided CoBRAT (Chemical Biological Response Aide) HardPak™ computers, comprising ruggedized Itronix GoBook Max laptop computers preloaded with the CoBRA incident response management software, with trained operators who served as part of the exercise control and evaluation team. The laptops were all wireless-enabled, allowing the CoBRA units in place at each of the functional command posts during the exercise to pass critical data in real time over a broadband wireless connection. DGI set up a wireless local area network, connecting the fire department’s Operations Command Post with the Unified Incident Command Center (UICC). Using a DGI server, the CoBRA units at these locations were able to share files and communicate directly throughout the entire exercise.
- The CoBRA HardPak™ on-scene with the Alexandria Fire Department haz-mat unit was equipped with a new high speed wireless modem, running on the Verizon CDMA network. This enabled the CoBRA team to provide live webcam video images from the site of the overturned tanker truck leaking simulated chemicals, while the response measures enacted by the responders on-scene were logged. CoBRA Incident Reports were filed over the same wireless connection, to include embedded digital photographs of the incident scene and critical haz-mat data from the integral CoBRA chemical databases.
- Congressman JAMES WALSH of New York was named 2003 Legislator of the Year by the Congressional Fire Services Institute for his support of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. Walsh is chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, HUD, and Independent Agencies, which has jurisdiction over the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the United States Fire Administration. He was instrumental in Congress’ approval of $750 million for the program for fiscal year 2003.
- STEVEN BAUER, a lieutenant with the Indianapolis (IN) Fire Department, received the Indianapolis Colts/NFL Community Quarterback Award in recognition of his volunteer service to the People’s Burn Foundation (PBF) and dedication to burn survivors in Indiana. Bauer has volunteered with the PBF and served on its board of directors. The NFL Community Quarterback award will donate an $11,000 grant to the PBF in Bauer’s name.
- The DGI team supported a follow-on command post exercise that showcased an Army simulation system called the Emergency Preparedness Incident Command System (EPICS). At this exercise, the same players from Operation Furies exercised the coordination measures they practiced in Operation Furies, with the addition of the City of Alexandria Emergency Operations Center (EOC). CoBRA units were located at the simulation center (where computers showed the actions being taken on scene, in lieu of real players on the ground), the UICC, and the city’s EOC.
