Shore towns face their share of challenges with fire suppression duties, with limited access for full size apparatus and significant target hazards, particularly on boardwalks. Modern fire codes have substantially reduced the number of major fires, but there still exists the potential for such an occurrence. With these unique hazards being known, several east coast fire departments have a special purpose rigs designed to accommodate emergencies along the boardwalks in their response districts. Ocean City NJ is the focus of this article, other such rigs can be found in Wildwood New Jersey, Rehoboth Beach Delaware and Ocean City Maryland, to name a few.
Ocean City NJ is approximately 10.7 square miles with a resident population of just over 11,000. The summer vacation season brings an estimated 115,000-130,000 "residents" and visitors. The city has everything from 1 story bungalows to multi-story high rise buildings and includes a sizable number of 2 and 3 story wood frame vacation homes with very limited spacing in between. The city is protected by a very adequate public water supply system. The fire department in Ocean City is a fulltime department, and operates out of 3 fire stations in the city, manning 3 engine companies, a truck company and two ambulances, while utilizing off duty "recall" personnel to staff several reserve rigs and other specialty apparatus as necessary.
The City has a stretch of boardwalk that spans about 2 1/2 miles, roughly 10 of those blocks are heavily invested by the usual beach concession shops, restaurants, amusement parks and other tourist venues. The boardwalk is fairly wide in much of its most populated areas, but narrows down as you get past those sections. Several fires have struck in the boardwalk area in the past decade or so. In 1893, a large fire devastated one of the original amusement parks built there, and again in 1927, a larger fire destroyed several blocks in the boardwalk vicinity. A significant fire also struck at the Playland amusement park in 1961. They are no strangers to these types of fires.
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| Ocean City NJ 2005 Ford / Pierce Boardwalk Response Rig |
The Boardwalk Rig in Ocean City New Jersey is a 2005 Ford Super Duty/Pierce. It is what I refer to as a manifold wagon, where it has no pump or tank, rather it relies on a sustained water supply from a source pumper at street level. The rig is designed to bring any of the critical necessary initial suppression and forcible entry equipment from the street, right up to the boardwalk. The boardwalk rig is housed in fire station 1 at 6th St and West Avenue, which is in close proximity to much of the boardwalk. It is manned as necessary based on its need.
Some of the highlights of what it carries are;
- 800' 4" Supply Hose
- 200' 2" Attack Line
- 200' 2 1/2" Attack Line
- Elkhart Portable "R.A.M." monitor
- Elkhart 1000 GPM Rig Mounted Prepiped deluge set with portable base for deployment at ground level
- (3) SCBA
- Honda 3500W generator
- (2) Rig mounted telescopic flood lights
- (2) portable flood lights
- Chain Saw
- K-12 Saw
- PPV Fan
- Little Giant ladder
- Tarps
- Hand Tools
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| Floodlights and hooks can be seen here on the body |
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| Gasoline powered equipment and other "Truck Company" equipment |
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| The hosebed. Note the LDH intake and gated discharges at bottom left |
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| SCBA, additional lights and "Engine Company" tools on the drivers side |
Fire departments must be diligent and identify the needs within their response districts and design apparatus and operating policies to best serve these needs.
Authors Notes;
Special Thank you to the Ocean City Professional Firefighters FMBA Local 27 for providing details and photos of this rig. ~Mike G.
Visit the OCFD at www.ocfire.org
Visit the OCFMBA Local 27 at www.facebook.com/ocfmba27
You can also check out rigs from;
Wildwood NJ: http://www.wildwoodfirerescue.com/app396photos.php
Reboboth Beach De.: http://www.rehobothbeachfire.com/apparatus.cfm?a=4
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