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.