Ellicottville Fire Department, Ellicottville, NY

Ellicottville is a very small resort town. Everybody here is willing to do something and willing to have fun, so it’s a great little community. It’s got a lot of very, very fine restaurants, bars, and two ski resorts. There’s a lot of summer activities and of course a lot of winter activities. 

We have jazz festivals, fall festival of the arts, summer festival, and we have a beer festival. We have a little bit of everything so there’s something in Ellicottville for everybody. 

My name is Ed Fredrickson. I’m the fire chief of Ellicottville fire department in Ellicottville, New York. A lot of our homes are built on the slopes of the ski resort so we have a unique situation in how to deal with fighting fires on ski lodges on the side of the ski resorts. 

Being a resident of the town of Ellicottville is under 1,500. We don’t have enough manpower to be driving four trucks to the scene. We have to do a lot with one or two trucks. What we wanted to do is we wanted to combine our heavy rescue and one of our tack pumpers into one vehicle. 

We really wanted to get as much rescue equipment as we could onto a pumper. So we started spec-ing out what we wanted to do and what equipment we wanted on the truck and then we started looking at manufacturers that could do it. 

We sat down and we were able to design them– what we call the rescue pumper. And rescue pumpers, nowadays, are becoming more and more common, especially in the volunteer world where manpower is starting to become depleted. They wanted to design it so it was user-friendly for maybe just a crew of four guys, and to be able to use it multi-functionally for anything that they come upon– that be a car accident, a medical call, a structure fire– now they have all the tools on one truck. 

Ellicottville’s a pretty big area. A lot of our members will drive right to the scene instead of driving to the hall. It’d be a lot longer from the drive to the hall onto the scene. So if we can get the vehicle there, we usually don’t have any problem staffing it. Rosenbauer seemed to really pay attention to us and listen to what we wanted. Their commitment to quality is top-notch. 

I’m Rob Germain and the first assistant chief of the Ellicottville Fire Department, also the chairperson of the truck committee on developing the new custom rescue pumper truck. This is a Rosenbauer Commander Chassis with a custom body for what we decided we needed the best. 

This is an EMS compartment. We have one on each side. It pretty much handles all of our first aid equipment on the truck or whatever else we decide to put in there. It has two shelves in it for whatever is needed. 

This is the rear passenger compartment. It has two seats. The truck is designed for four passengers with three air-packed seats in the vehicle. This has our two pre-connect lines as well as spots for a Stokes basket and two backboards. 

This is the enclosed pump panel. It has a 1,500 gallon-a-minute pump as well as 1,000 gallons of water on this truck as well as the heavy rescue end of it. This is enclosed for the weather we have in the Ellicottville area– the snow and ice. It keeps all the controls dry and functional. 

We also have a telescoping light tower on top of the truck that is run by this unit here. We also have a cascade system for refilling air bottles. We have a spot for eight empty bottles, as well as the compartment to refill two bottles at a time off of an on-board cascade system. 

This compartment has fold-out tool panels so we can put tools on both sides of the panel, as well as the back wall if we need to get that far. This door is designed for two fire extinguishers. We have one on each side of the truck. This compartment has a pull-out tray on the bottom to reach any of the heavier items, as well as the three stationary trays which are adjustable. 

This is the ladder– a fold-down ladder that accesses the top of the truck to more storage and where our hoses are. It’s easy to access with the bigger ladder with turn-out gear on. This is the top of the truck where our large-diameter hose is located, as well. We have several storage compartments up here which has got lots of area for extra storage of whatever kind we need. 

We also have an expandable deck gun which will go 360 degrees as well as up and down. On this side of the truck– this is the officer’s side of the truck– we have another power reel that’s run off the generator as well as a little bit of storage. We also have our Speedi Dry hopper which holds 300 pounds of Speedi Dry. 

We also have another compartment with a pull-out tray for probably a portable fan, I would assume is what we’re going to put on that at this time. We also have our ladders built into the tank of the truck so they’re stored, as well, inside out of the weather. 

We also have a pull-out tray which is holding our 9000 pound winch, which the truck is designed to have the winch hook-up on all four sides of the truck. No matter what side of the truck we’re on we can hook up the winch to use it if needed. This compartment here mirrors the compartment on the driver’s side. We have the pull-out tool bar to store the tools that we need. 

This compartment has three pull-out tool doors as well as a speedy floor dry compartment. In this compartment we have an electrical reel, as well, on top of the truck. We have a three-drawer tool box to hold the hand tools for the rescue end of the truck. This will hold all our battery-operated hand tools at this time. 

This compartment is actually the suction end as well as discharge end. We also have the pre-connects, which are also on the driver’s side and can be unloaded from the officer’s side as well. We have pretty aggressive tires on this truck for the snowy weather and the ice that we have in this area. 

On the front of the truck we have a storage compartment built into the front bumper. It holds our pre-connected trash line. We also have a hose reel for our hydraulic system. This is unique for us because of the location of all of the tools that will be located in this front bumper. 

This wraps up the walk-around of our new custom rescue pumper built by Rosenbauer on the Commander Chassis