FIR201 Assignment 4A
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Eastern Gateway Community College *
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Dec 6, 2023
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1
History of Fire Pumps
Bobby Roseberry
Fire Science Department, Eastern Gateway Community College
FIR 201 Fire Service Hydraulics
Professor Mansfield
November 19, 2023
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History of Fire Pumps
Fire departments main goals when arriving on the scene of an active fire scene is to
provide rescue efforts to any trapped occupants within the fire structure and to deploy fire
suppression efforts by applying water on the fire. In order to supply water to the fire, there needs
to be a way to provide pressure to push the water to the fire hose and out of the nozzle. The first
thing need to is to have a source of water, which comes from either an on truck water tank, a fire
hydrant or another source of water supply, then there has to be a way to move that water which
will come in the form of a pump which is know has a fire pump that is mostly found on the fire
truck. This pump will produce pressure that moves the water to the fire hose. The purpose of this
paper is to look at the history of fire pumps in the United States
Fire Service, to identify and
discuss the most common type of fire pumps found in the fire service today, describe the
operating pressures associated with contemporary fire pumps that are designed to operate at
100% of rated capacity, and to describe a fire pump and the rated capacity of the pump at various
pressures found on a fire truck at Warren Township Volunteer Fire Department.
Literature Review
The very first fire pump in the United States was a hand operated pump that would be
pulled to the fire scene by firefighters, who in return would be the ones who provided the power
for the pump to operate and move the water to a hose. Other firefighters who weren't operating
the pump would start a bucket brigade and transfer water to the water tub on the pump. Then in
the early 1800’s firefighters started to use a horse to pull the cart to the scene, but it was still
powered by firefighters. Then the power started to switch from human to steam
(Crapo, 2017).
Finally in the mid 1800’s gasoline engine engines were created. Fire pumps then were switched
to gasoline powered but were still drawn by horses to the fire scene. As gasoline engines were
produced and improved over the years,fire trucks were produced and pumps placed on the trucks
and eventually were called fire apparatus. Fire trucks and the pumps continue to improve over
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the years.
The 2 main categories of pumps in the fire service are positive displacement pumps and
non-positive displacement pumps. Out of these two categories of pumps the most common
pumps you will find in the fire service in non-positive displacement pumps.
They are not just
used on fire apparatus, but are also found where pumps are needed to provide pressure for water
based fire protection systems (Crapo, 2017). Non-positive displacement pumps are designed not
to pump a fixed volume of water with each cycle of operation, but instead the volume of water
discharged is dependent on the resistance offered to the movement of water
(Crapo, 2017). The
most common non-positive displacement pump is referred to as centrifugal pumps. There are
also 2 other types of pumps that fall in the non-positive displacement pumps section, they are
axial flow pumps, mixed flow pumps, and radial flow pumps. These pumps are also classified as
kinetic energy pumps.
Fire pumps have requirements that must meet the standards that are posted in the NFPA
1901: Standards for Automotive Fire Apparatus. There are seven pump capacities for the fire
service, they are 500 gpm, 750 gpm, 1,000 gpm, 1,250 gpm, 1,500 gpm, 1,750 gpm, and 2,000
gpm. NFPA 1901 has discharge requirements that a fire pump must meet. The discharge
requirements are 100% of rated capacity at 150 psi, then 70% of rated capacity at 200 psi, and
50% of rated capacity at 250 psi.
(See Appendix A for a picture of the fire pump data plate). As
described before in the discharge requirements that are set by NFPA 1901, the pump data plate
shows all three psi settings and what gallons per minute are pumped on each pressure. At 100%
of rated capacity the pump would be set at 150 psi; it can pump 1,510 gallons per minute with
the engine running at 1543 rpms. Next would be the pump running at 70% of the capacity, it
would be pumping 1,051 gallons per minute at 200 psi and the engine running at 1,686 rpms.
Lastly, 50% of the pump capacity would be pumping 750 gallons per minute at 250 psi and the
engine running at 1,850 rpms.
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Conclusion
Fire suppression operations have come a long way over the years. It started out with
bucket brigades, which was firefighters/volunteers standing in a line passing full buckets up the
line to throw on the fire and then sending the empty buckets back down to be refilled. Then came
a manual pump on a wheel wagon that had to be transported to the fire scene by the same
firefighters that would have to provide the power to pump water. Then the wagon was horse
drawn but still required human power to pump the water and eventually went steam powered. In
the mid 1800's it finally transferred to a gasoline powered motor that would pump the water,
eventually would then create a fire engine that could transport all to the scene to where the
current fire apparatus are today. From the beginning to where fire pumps are today all had the
same task of suppression of the fire.
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References
Avsec, R. (2021, June 23). Fire apparatus pumps: A short history … and beyond.
FireRescue1. https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/apparatus-
accessories/firefighting-pumps/articles/fire-apparatus-pumps-a-short-history-and-beyond-
PcpwmbEhVrct6gDz/#:~:text=Pumps%20manufactured%20today%20must%20conform
Crapo, W. F. (2017). Fire protection hydraulics and water supply (3rd ed.). Jones &
Bartlett.
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Appendix A
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