Bob Oliphant
Lieutenant
Kalamazoo (MI) Dept. of Public Safety
Response: Our department has used 134-inch line for approximately 10 years. It is carried as a preconnected load and is used primarily for interior fire attack. The 134-inch replaced 112-inch line equipped with fixed- gallonage fog nozzles. The change to 134-inch hose included changing to automatic nozzles.
The change to 134-inch and automatic nozzles was intended to attain the flow of a 212-inch handline, but it was never achieved in practice. Nozzle reaction at higher flow rates made it too difficult to control. We generally operate with one firefighter on the nozzle and another to help pull and feed the line. If we could actually put two firefighters on the nozzle, a higher flow rate could probably be achieved. The only real changes the 134-inch line accomplished for us were delivering a few more gpms at the same pressure used for the 112-inch line and the ability to flow more gpms, if really needed. For higher flows, we still depend on the 212-inch line.
