Fire engine

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A fire engine is designed to pump water using an engine and onboard water supply, which can be replenished via a fire hydrant, water tender or any other available water source by using suction.

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Engines are also known as pumpers as they are used to pump water onto fires. Their primary purpose is for direct fire suppression, and may carry many tools including ladders, pike poles, axes, fire extinguishers, and ventilating equipment. Engines are normally staffed with at least three people (a captain, an engineer, and a firefighter, and preferably with a second firefighter), to be able to effectively and safely attack a fire.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term fire engine was first used in the 17th century, in exactly the same sense it has now, "a machine for throwing water to extinguish fires".

On occasion, fire engines have also been used as water cannons for crowd control.

There are several configurations of fire engines relating to the position of the pump operating panel including top, side, front and rear mount.

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Fire truck

A fire truck is differentiated from a fire engine in that it has no onboard water supply. Fire trucks are instead equipped with a mix of: long ladders, hydraulic platforms, additional firefighting equipment, a variety of heavy rescue tools, extrication equipment, and other emergency gear.

The turntable ladder is the best-known form of fire truck, but there are also "cherry pickers", rescue tenders, floodlight trucks and other specialized units. A "Tiller" or "Hook-and-Ladder" truck (a semi-trailer carrying a turntable ladder), formerly much used in the United States but are becoming rarer today, requires two drivers, as it has separate steering wheels for front and rear wheels (the steering device for the rear is sometimes a tiller rather than a true steering wheel). This truck is often used in areas with narrow streets that prohibit the longer single vehicle trucks from entering.

The term "Tiller" and "Hook and Ladder" are not interchangeable. Truck companies generally operate from ladder trucks. Under the general heading of "ladder truck", there are many types. Rear mounts, mid-mounts, tower ladders, ladder towers, tillers, and articulating booms are the main types of ladder trucks. Generally, ladder trucks carry a wide assortment of ladders and hooks. Ladders have fairly obvious purposes; hooks can be used for a variety of things, but most commonly for pulling drywall or plaster walls away from framing members to expose hidden fire and allow access for extinguishing same. Hooks can also be used for pulling siding, breaking windows, etc. Technically, any vehicle that carries hooks and ladders could be a hook and ladder.

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Other apparatus

There are also rescue/medical companies with their own distinctive vehicles, including ambulances and heavy rescue or support trucks. A quint, or quintuple combination pumper, functions as a mix of an engine and a truck by carrying its own water and pump like an engine as well as elevating ladders and more equipment like a truck. The quint carries the 5 main things between a fire engine and an aerial ladder truck. It carries a pump, a water tank, hoses, an aerial ladder, and ground ladders.

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In the United States these are most often found on the East Coast, or where staffing levels are not high enough for multiple vehicles.

In some communities a fire apparatus, often a Paramedic Engine, will be used to carry paramedics or EMTs to medical emergencies because of their faster response times due to forward staging in the city compared to ambulances coming from hospitals. This sometimes puzzles people who see a fire apparatus race past but do not see any fire, but medical calls often outnumber fire calls for such departments.

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Crew assignment

In the United States, firefighters are generally deployed into fire companies specializing in certain tasks. Most common are engine companies and ladder, or "truck", companies. In addition, large cities frequently staff rescue companies. By definition, each company is led by an officer (a captain or lieutenant) who commands several firefighters. Staffing of fire companies varies by jurisdiction and frequently by company type. In large cities, fire company staffing may vary from as few as three to as many as six personnel.

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Brief history of firefighting equipment

Ctesibius of Alexandria is credited with inventing the first fire pump around the second century B.C. The fire pump was reinvented in Europe during the 1500s, reportedly used in Augsburg in 1518 and Nuremberg in 1657. A book of 1655 inventions mentions a steam engine (called "fire engine") pump used to "raise a column of water 40 feet," but there was no mention of whether it was portable.

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Colonial laws in America required each house to have a bucket of water on the front stoop (especially at night) in case of fire, for the initial "bucket brigade" that would throw the water at fires.

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Philadelphia obtained a hand-pumped fire engine in 1719, years after Boston's 1654 model appeared there, made by Joseph Jencks, but before New York's two engines arrived from London.

By 1730, Newham, in London, had made successful fire engines; the first used in New York City (in 1731) were of his make (six years before formation of the NYC volunteer fire department). The amount of manpower and skill necessary for firefighting prompted the institution of an organized fire company by Benjamin Franklin in 1727. Thomas Lote built the first fire engine made in America in 1743.

The first fire engine in which steam was used was that of Braithwaite in 1829; Ericsson made a similar one in New York in 1840. John Ericsson is credited with building the first American steam-powered fire engine.

Until the mid-19th Century most fire engines were manoeuvred by men, but the introduction of horse-drawn fire engines considerably improved the response time to incidents. The first self-propelled steam engine was built in New York in 1841. It was the target of sabotage by fire fighters and its use was discontinued, and motorized fire engines did not become commonplace until the early 20th Century.

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For many years firefighters sat on the sides of the fire engines, or even stood on the rear of the vehicles, exposed to the elements. While this arrangement enhanced response time, it proved to be both uncomfortable and dangerous (some firefighters were thrown to their deaths when their fire engines made sharp turns on the road), and today nearly all fire engines have fully enclosed seatings for their crews.

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Pumpers

Early pumpers used cisterns as a source of water. Water was later put into wooden pipes under the streets and a "fire plug" was pulled out of the top of the pipe when a suction hose was to be inserted. Later systems incorporated pressurized fire hydrants, where the pressure was increased when a fire alarm was sounded. This was found to be harmful to the system, and unreliable, and today's valved hydrant systems are typically kept under pressure at all times, although additional pressure may be added when needed. Pressurized hydrants eliminate much of the work in obtaining water for pumping through the engine and into the attack hoses. Many rural fire engines still rely upon cisterns or other sources for drafting water into the pumps.

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Aerials

As buildings grew in height since the late 19th Century, various means of reaching burning tall structures have been devised. At first, manually-extendable ladders were used; as these grew in length (and weight) these were put onto two large, old-fashioned wheels. When carried by fire engines these ladders had the wheels suspended behind the rear of the vehicle, making it a very distinctive sight which disappeared from some Commonwealth countries only in recent years.

Before long, turntable ladder - which was even longer, mechanically-extendable, and installed directly onto a fire truck - made its appearance. Since the late 1930s, the longest turntable ladders have reached a height of 150 feet (45 metres) - so long, in fact, that some ladders in the USA have been mounted onto semi-trailers (the "Tiller Trucks"), with an extra crew sitting at the back just to steer the rear wheels!

After the Second World War turntable ladders were supplemented by the aerial platform (or the "Cherry Picker") attached onto a mechanically-bending arm (or "snorkel") installed onto a fire truck; while these could not reach the height of the turntable ladder, these platforms could extend into previously unreachable "dead corners" of a burning building.

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Gallery of fire engines and trucks

Paris fire brigade (here shown parading)	Fire truck in Lausanne	FDNY in New York City, New York.	Truck 2 in Berkeley, California
Truck 5 in Chico	Swedish standardized "BAS" firetruck	Wheeling, IL FD Engine 24