(screaming)
- Fire trucks!
They're huge and loud
and they save your crap from burning down.
They've been highly specialized vehicles
ever since they were invented.
But what are these things built on?
What's all inside there?
Well put on your fireproof suits boys and girls,
we're going little hose to big hose,
compartment to compartment to compartment,
bumper to bumper,
on this Pierce Arrow XT fire engine.
(upbeat music)
Fire trucks are totally unique machines
and current day fire trucks are extremely customizable.
Everything from the chassis cab size
to your engine and transmission options.
Today, we're gonna look at how
the Oxnard California Fire Department
configured their newest fire engine to serve their
mostly urban territory.
The particular fire engine we're looking at
is what's known as a pumper,
and it has it's own on-board water tank,
along with a whole lot of other tools and equipment that
we'll get to shortly.
A fire engine like this will be in service for about
13 to 15 years.
Overall, the Pierce Arrow XT is a thick, wide boy,
but at 95 inches,
it's actually one of the narrower models.
The steering can do a 45 degree cramp angle.
What's a cramp angle, you ask?
Well, it's apparently the maximum wheel angle
at full steering lock.
Better cramp angle makes it more maneuverable
and able to get through tighter spaces,
a good thing for an engine on city duty.
It even has four wheel independent suspension
to give it a better ride.
The frame rails are made from 120 KSI steel
and are over 13 inches wide for increased
chassis strength and good handling.
Good for its size at least, it's
a fire engine.
It has a healthy 15 inches of ground clearance
in case it needs to climb over any debras
or debris in its way
and, it's also red
but if I do this,
now it's yellow.
It's called graphical effects, I don't know!
(laughing) All right, you see that panel over there
with all the things on it?
Let's go look at it, it's called the pump panel.
This truck carries 500 gallons of water
and 20 gallons of foam on board,
and I talked to the fire captain,
he says that's about
enough water for four minutes of spraying.
Any more than that and they gotta hook up to a fire hydrant,
which they do with this, right here.
So, this is something crazy I learned today,
not every firemen is a firefighter.
Let me explain.
On this engine there are three crew members.
You have the engineer,
who runs this pump and drives the truck,
you got the captain,
who strategized how they're gonna put out the fire
and then you got the firefight himself,
who is more of a workhorse,
does kind of a little bit of everything.
Okay, so a fire engine gets to a fire.
The firefighter hops out,
he's grabbing one of these hoses, he's running in,
he's got four minutes to do what he's gotta do.
In the meantime, the engineer
who was driving the truck here gets out,
he has to find the nearest fire hydrant
connect one of the big ass hoses in the back
to this inlet here.
He turns on the pump,
he makes sure there's water flowing everywhere,
but to do that he's also got to come in here
and do hand calculations on this spreadsheet
to make sure that the firefighter
and the captain have enough water to do their job.
Then, after he's done that,
he's probably gonna hop in there too and get, get it done.
I thought this thing carried like eight dudes.
There's three dudes per fire engine, that's crazy.
The engineer has got all the information he needs.
He's got the engine RPM,
he's got a digital water level gage right here,
but if that fails,
there's also a very old-school water gage right here
that can tell him exactly how much water is in his tank
just by looking at this clear piece of glass
but not all fires are best fought with plain old H2O
and the fire department has to be prepared to fight
any kind of inferno.
So in addition to the on-board water,
this pumper also carries 20 gallons of foam
to help put out hydrocarbon fires, boat fires,
or stubborn cardboard debris and trash fires.
The engineer is able to change how much foam
goes into the water mix with this panel right here.
He can do it on the fly
and of course, big red buttons are very important.
This one operates the air horn on the truck
if the chief gives the order
for all the firefighters to get the heck out,
engineer hits this for 10 seconds, they gotta go.
Speaking of going, let's go look at all the compartments
maybe I can find a hose to use.
Everything on this truck has a very specialized
and specific place.
So, any fireman in the department
can quickly find what they need.
Hey, these are all the tools
that you would probably need to either
forcefully get into a house like this,
whoa, flat back axe and this other tool
which I guess is more of an old-school East Coast thing.
You could pry doors open.
On 90% of structure fires that the, this engine response to
they use this stuff.
I'll just uh, come on, no that's not how that goes.
Other way Noaln, other way.
So yeah, you got your shovels.
You got a big drywall hook to tear walls down with.
Something weird I thought that they had was
these big old squeegees right,
they got these big old squeegees just in case like
a sprinkler system breaks in doors.
The fire department can quickly clean it up
with this thing, that's pretty cool.
Come on, everyone's favorite tool.
I did get it out.
I mean what more do we have to say, it's an axe.
I feel so cool like this.
Right here is the engineers SCBA
or self-contained breathing apparatus so,
the dudes done working the pumps he can
hop into the fire if he needs to.
There's also extra oxygen tanks in this compartment here.
Another interesting feature, a bunch of tarps down here.
If your furniture hasn't burned up
they'll actually group it all together,
cover it with these tarps to keep it safe.
They also have tarps to put on your floors
and carpets so they don't mess it up
when they're walking around.
I think that's very courteous of them.
All right, now that we've seen the
driver's side of the truck let's go to the rear,
check out what's back there.
All right, from top to bottom on the back here.
Of course we've got the hoses,
the one in the middle here is what the fire engine uses
to connect to a fire hydrant.
These big boys can pump 250 gallons of water per minute.
On either side we've got high rise hoses.
Have you ever like, taken the stairs
in a big building instead of the elevator,
you see those big water connectors?
Yeah, that's what these guys hook to.
It's so firefighters can put out a fire on like the
8th floor of a building.
It's very useful.
They can also be linked together in case the firefighter
needs more hose.
Probably the workhorse or work hose if you will
of the fire engine is this rubber hose in the back.
They use this hose for vehicle fires
and for wildfires that are on the side of the freeway.
It can self retract.
It's just very useful.
Captain told me that they probably use this one the most
just 'cause it's so convenient.
Oh, that's a nice noise.
Another cool old-school feature on the back here
is this button that lets the engineer
know to stop if you're hanging on the back.
They don't really do that anymore, ride back here
but it's just cool that it, that's still there.
Another cool thing is these big bearings right here
so you can use that rubber hose
without catching on the truck
and of course every big truck needs the rear view camera
which they have right there.
All right, let's check out the other side of the truck.
There's only one way to open this thing up,
you gotta clap.
Whoa, that's stupid.
It's mostly medical and rescue equipment on this side.
Down here is the most used compartment of the truck.
Tons of first aid.
Believe it or not, this is all climbing gear
for cliff side rescues.
This has like tons of like carabiners.
There's climbing rope in here, 100 foot ropes, belay ropes,
lifelines, what have you.
In here they've got a bunch of life jackets
'cause Oxnard has five miles of coastline
so they respond to and stuff as well.
Over here there's more
traction stuff for first aid in case you break
a leg or something.
This is their wildland survival packs so they've got,
shelters in here, other things they need when out
on a brush fire out in the middle of nowhere.
Right here is the captain's SCBA.
These packs have about 30 minutes of oxygen
but when you're working super hard fighting a fire
it's actually more about 15 minutes of oxygen.
That's why they have so many tanks.
There's the co2 fire extinguisher
and the dry chem fire extinguisher
but the most commonly used one,
it's actually a big water one they have at the front
and then down here just big buckets of kitty litter.
Just in case there's like an accident
and they're need, there's some sort of substance
on the ground that needs to be soaked up
and directly above me
is all the ladders that this truck needs.
There's a 28 foot ladder,
a 14 foot ladder and a 10 foot attic ladder
and underneath the racet there's a big black hose
that they use to suck up water from lakes or pools
if there's no access to a fire hydrant.
All right, let's check out the panel on the passenger side.
All right, so the panel on the passenger side,
not as crazy as the one on the driver's side, that's fine.
There's still a bunch of inlets and outlets
for water to be used, more hoses.
This compartment here
has some hardware for the engineer to couple hoses together.
This looks expensive.
In this compartment here we have the water extinguisher.
It's used for kitchen fires and,
you know, fires where water will actually help.
It's not every fire gets put up by water,
that's what the foams for.
Anyway, I think before we get in the cab
we gotta look at the engine and to look at the engine
we need, the cab lift.
This Aero XT is powered by a Detroit DD13 12.8 liter
inline-six turbo diesel.
It makes about 470 horsepower
and almost 1800 foot-pounds of torque.
All sent to the rear wheels through a six-speed
Allison transmission.
In a vehicle that weighs 40,000 pounds,
you're gonna need all the grunt you can get.
It's also got a tilt cab
so the engine can be easily accessed for easy maintenance.
Remember how in the driver side panel there is a tachometer
so the engineer could see the engine speed.
This is what powers the pump in this truck.
Power goes through the engine,
through the drive shaft to a transfer case
that powers the onboard water pump,
either taking water from the onboard tank
or from the fire hydrant and getting it to the fire hoses
so the firefighters can do their job.
Now that we've seen the heart of this engine,
let's go see the brains.
All right,
it's a lot harder with those gear on.
All right so here we are.
Inside a freaking fire truck.
The (beep)
is actually very driver focused.
Got a big switch panel with a ton of labeled lights
like driver side flood like you can see there, very cool.
Up here there's a,
there's tons of roof light.
There's a siren button that I'm not gonna touch right now.
There's surprisingly, there's air conditioning in this truck
which actually makes sense because I'm very hot right now.
There's tons of radios in here as well so the engineer can
communicate with the captain.
These are actually very noise canceling it,
I can hear my own heartbeat.
There's enough room for four firefighters back there
and all their gear.
The firefighter seat actually has a locking mechanism
for his breathing apparatus.
So he can sit down in the seat, put the thing on and
be locked in and then when he, it's time to go,
unlocks and lets them out.
The captain has a computer there
where he can monitor all the trucks functions.
The driver can do that as well.
So we got the radio of course up here.
There's just so much stuff in here.
Of course the seat belts,
they're red just like a Civic type-R.
I think it's a little slower than one of those.
On top of the cab there are a lot of
antenna for communication.
One of them is called the AVL or automatic vehicle locator.
The AVL lets dispatch know where all the fire engines are
so they can call the closest engine to an emergency.
The coolest antenna on there
is one that controls traffic lights.
They can do it from up to 300 feet away.
If they're approaching in intersections,
they can make it green so they can get to the scene faster.
Side note, flashing your lights at traffic lights
doesn't do anything.
You gotta have one of those special antenna.
All right, so, I'm gonna fulfill a childhood dream here.
I'm gonna fire up the fire engine.
Let's do it.
I'm not gonna rev it or anything
but this is very cool.
Turn on that.
Got the lights going.
Dare I do the siren, I think so.
Hey, you're watching Bumper to Bumper on Donut Media.
I'm gonna turn this off.
Well that was cool.
(laughing)
That was awesome.
(dramatic music)
Huge mega shout out to our friends at Oxnard FD
for hooking us up with this beast.
Follow them on Instagram at Oxnardcityfire.
These guys are heroes and they're also really, really cool
and today was a total childhood dream come true.
This is probably coolest video we've ever made.
Also, major thanks to Oxnard PD for putting us in touch
with the rad captain's here and don't forget be nice.
Hey guys, we have new socks
on the donut media store.
There Moe Powell baby socks, they're yellow, I love them.
Go to donut.media get yourself some socks.
They add five horsepower to your feet.
Oh I got a helmet now, cool.
(mumbling)
- [Woman] Isn't that backwards?
- [Man] The hat is backwards.
- No it's not.
Oh, it is.
I would have looked really stupid then.