Fire Truck 44 - San Diego, CA
Posted by: Metro2
N 32° 54.917 W 117° 07.305
11S E 488615 N 3641901
This is a hybrid vehicle known as a "quint".
Waymark Code: WMR6NE
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 05/17/2016
Views: 1
This vehicle was noticed park in a mall in San Diego.
This news article (
visit link) has a photo of this vehicles and discusses it and the other two "quints"in San Diego:
"The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department is making a slight change to its brownout plans to give two local areas a better chance of fighting fires.
Two "quints," a hybrid of a fire engine and a fire truck, will be moved by the end of May to new stations. One quint will move from Station 44 in Mira Mesa to Station 35 in University City, and the other quint will go from Station 46 in Santaluz to Station 21 in Pacific Beach.
In return, Mira Mesa will get a regular fire engine from Pacific Beach and Santaluz will receive a reserve engine.
Assistant Fire Chief Jeff Carle told 10News Mira Mesa and Santaluz don't need the quints as much as the other stations.
"In this particular area, we're a little better covered with engines to come in behind the truck and back it up more quickly than in other locations," Carle said.
The SDFRD only has 3 quints, which cost at least $1 million each. The third will stay put in Rancho Penasquitos.
A quint is capable of handling more emergency calls, and it can handle calls that are usually handled by a fire truck or a fire engine. Besides carrying the usual fire fighting equipment, it's also equipped with a large ladder, has its own pump and can carry its own water.
Besides the truck swap, the SDFRD is sticking to its current brownout plan which keeps several trucks out of service every month. The brownouts are necessary after $11.5 million was cut from the department's operating budget.
Carle said the brownouts do result in slower response times but "[t]he response time issue is really only going to be changed if you add the resource, and unfortunately the financial situation right now does not allow us to make that particular change.""