Identifying local fire engines, and what fires they respond to

BENTON CO., Wash. — Benton County Fire District #1 has a new wildland fire engine. It’s a type 5, which means it works on natural cover fires. The new engine will respond out of Station 130, on Grant St. in Kennewick, near Canal Dr. The apparatus will also have a twin coming to Station 120 in Finley in just a few weeks.

When it comes to which fire engines show up to a scene, fire crews said it depends on where the fire is burning. BCFD #1 Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Nicholls explained that different apparatus have different equipment, and have completely different tasks. For example, ladder trucks that respond to residential or structure fires carry equipment that allows firefighters to go inside burning buildings.

“We carry our self-contained breathing apparatus on it for when we go inside house fires. It has a complement of ladders and different sizes of hoses and just a whole lot of different tools,” said Dep. Chief Nicholls. It’s different for the new wildland fire engine. “We don't carry all the same equipment. In this truck, we carry shovels and a variety of different wildland tools, as well as smaller hose that we use out in the wildfire environment.” The type 5 will drive alongside firefighters as they put out fires in wildlands.

If someone sees a local fire truck, they’ll see a set of numbers on the side they may not understand. The identifier on the new engine, for example, is “ E1153 .” Those letters and numbers each mean something different.

Dep. Chief Nicholls said it’s county [1], agency [1], type of engine [5] and then the station [3] it’s coming from.

“The first number in the identifier identifies what county they're in. So, the ‘1’ is Benton County. If this was a ‘2,’ it would be Franklin County. If it was a ‘3,’ it would be Walla Walla County. The second one indicates what district. So, we're Benton County Fire District #1, if it was Benton County Fire District #2, that would be a 2, and so on and so forth. The 5 on this truck indicates what type of engine it is. So, this is a type 5 engine. If it was a type 1 engine, that would be a 1, and so on and so forth, and then the 3 is the station that it's out of. So, this is our station 3, or station 130, and so, that tells us what station it's coming out of.”

Benton County Fire District #2 has a list of their engines on its website , along with Franklin County Fire District #3 on its website .

Here’s what Dep. Chief Nicholls said voters need to know about funding and replacing these apparatus. He said in the early 2000s, voters approved a bond measure that purchased four structural engines and four wildland engines for BCFD #1. Those eight apparatus are coming to the end of their life cycle.

“Based on current NFPA or nationally recognized standards, the eight apparatus that we purchased with that voter approved bond are coming to the end of their life cycle, and so what Fire District One has done through basically quality management of our budget, is we are able to replace these apparatus through our normal operating fund over the last several years, hopefully being able to finish up that process of replacing all all eight trucks within the next year or two,” explained Dep. Chief Nicholls.

He included that as various levies come up on the ballots, the operations fund is limited based on current legislation. “It is important that we're able to pass those levies, to keep those operating funds where they need to be, so we can provide apparatus to our responders and not have to go to special bond measures to the taxpayers,” said Dep. Chief Nicholls.

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