Around 3:30 this afternoon 4-10 (Witmer), Rescue 4-8 (Ronks), and EMS were dispatched to Rt. 340 and Mount Sidney Rd, Chief 4-8 was first on scene and confirmed entrapment, Engine 4-10-1 and Rescue 4-8 arrived soon afterwards. Squad 4-1-2 assisted Squad 4-10 with traffic control. Units were on scene for about 3 hours.

This past Monday night, the members headed over to the pond on Jefferson Drive in the Greenfield Industrial Park for a training class on the proper set up and operation of a tanker fill site. Deputy Chief Matt Bono led the class, which consisted of the proper methods to accomplish the following:

 
Set up an engine to draft from a static water source
Hydrant connections for maximum water flow
Layout and operation of the tanker fill lines
 
In Lancaster County, the standard for tanker fill-sites is to utilize two 2.50” or 3.00” hoses with 3.00” Stortz couplings to fill a tanker.   Witmer’s standard operating procedures for tanker operations require that a fill site engine fill tankers at a rate of at least 1,000 gpm.    The members practiced hooking up the 6.00” hard suction hoses and float dock strainers and also took turns operating the tanker fill manifold and handling the 3.00” tanker fill lines. In our opinion, a successful fill site requires approximately 7 firefighters to operate efficiently: a fill site officer, pump operator, manifold operator and four firefighters to man the tanker fill lines. It is also extremely important that only one tanker is filled at a time. It will not benefit the fire scene to have two half-full tankers at a fill site versus having one tanker filled and heading back to the fire scene before filling the second.
 
Witmer constantly trains on various water supply operation and procedures and are always glad to share our knowledge with other companies. We are also interested in hearing about what procedures and operations work well for other companies, with the hope of continuing to improve our water delivery skills.

Training night was to locate and rescue a person from a storm drain 800' under ground. Took crews about an hour to locate a worker from a storm drain after using the GPS on his phone to track him down.

Zone 4 competition at the Bird-In-Hand Restaurant,  Bird-In-Hand 4-1, Gap 4-2, Gordonville 4-3, Intercourse 4-4, Kinzer 4-5, Paradise 4-7, Ronks 4-8, White Horse 4-9, Witmer 4-10, Lafayette 6-3.

It is official - Tanker 4-10-2 was officially retired from service as of 07:00 hours on April 17, 2010.  Tanker 4-10-2 served the Witmer community for over 21 years and provided our community with excellent fire protection.

Several members met on 4/17/2010 to remove all the loose equipment from the unit.  It will be leaving sometime in the next week to be delivered to Command Fire Apparatus in Landisville.  After some miscellanous work is done by Command Fire, Tanker 4-10-2 will be heading to Payneville, KY to begin its second career.

Farewell, Tanker 4-10-2

We appreciate your service and we thank you!!

Witmer (4-10) assisted Paradise (4-7) on a 2nd alarm dwelling fire. Tanker 4-10-1 and Tanker 4-10-2 were dispatched on the 2nd alarm dwelling fire in the 3000 Blk of Lincoln Hwy around 18:31 hours. As crews were already in station as this was our general meeting night, both tankers responded in under a minute.  Both tankers arrived on scene and were staged for approximately 1/2 hour before being released by Command 4-7.

Around 5:05 am this morning station 4-10 (Witmer) was dispatched to assist 6-3 (Lafayette) with a building fire at 144 Greenfield Rd (Building #2), fire reported in the paint room.

At 18:18 Hrs. Tanker 4-10-1 & 4-10-2 responded to assist Farmersville (3-5-) with a second alarm barn fire on Conestoga Creek Road. The tankers helped with shuttling water from a close by creek until the fire was placed under control. At that time,  Tanker 4-10-2 was released and Tanker 4-10-1 transferredt to Farmersville (3-5) for a standby untill their units returned to service.

 On Friday morning at 6:36 hrs Tanker 4-10-1 and Tanker 4-10-2 assisted station 5-10 (Strasburg) with a building fire on Summit Hill Rd, Tanker 4-10-1 and Tanker 4-10-2 responded to assist with shuttling water. 4-10 units remained on the scene for about 4 Hrs.