Firecarts

Sorry I haven't got back to some of you regarding questions on equipment. Facebook runs this profile like a business, so it's a lot different than my personal profile (Bart Young). They limit what I can put on the firecarts page unless I pay for a subscription. Anyway, I haven't made a run of these carts for a while, but will try to get some made by February. In the mean time there is a lot of useful information on the firecarts facebook page or my web page www.firecarts.com. I don't mind people taking ideas from the site to make their house safer. Advice is free!. Hopefully I'll have time to put this business into gear someday.

Eight of the homes on the Stanfield Hill ridge above Collins lake had Firecarts during the Yuba County Cascade fire. One was just set up. This allowed us to free up the few engines we had available for unprotected homes during the firefight of our lives on that ridge. Ultimately we lost one unoccupied older mobile home out of many homes. We lost it because of lack of manpower. Several homes we just presoaked and left and the ones on the very top we stood our ground. Fire was held at that ridge despite three major spot fires over the next couple days.

There is a building code in Yuba County requiring a 3000 gallon tank with a 4-1/2" NST (NH) fitting for every permit. This is the LEAST COMMON fitting in the country, it may work out on a hydraulic engineers tablet, but doesn't work for fire. NO FIRE ENGINE HAS THE 4-1/2" TO 2-1/2" adapter!!! In the DOHFPD area the board will usually give waivers for the rule. There are only TWO threads that are universal to all fire engines. 2-1/2" NH or 1-1/2" NH otherwise known as NST. Bel...ow and above that is anyones guess. In a large fire, you will have an out of county structure protection engine pull up to your wonderful 3000 gallon tank, that had the expensive adapter stolen by brass thieves, only to realize they can't get water to their engine with it. Most districts blindly adopted the rule, so you may not get a waiver, but hopefully the other district fire cheifs will push for change. Chicago's code is 2-1/2".....if they can fight skyscrapers with it, I think we can protect a double wide! More info on my site firecarts.com. See more

Here's some pictures of Firecart using a Scotty Foam-fast nozzle. The foam pre-wets areas with a soapy mixture that penetrates fuels to defend them from burning. They are advertised to increase protection from normal water 5X.

www.firecarts.com