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There are many aspects of responsibility for the Fire Department. The original task of any Fire Department has been controlling and extinguishing hostile fires.
Since the first Fire Department was organized the roles and responsibilities of Fire Departments have continued to evolve. One of the first Fire Companies in the United States was organized in Charleston, South Carolina.
Fire Suppression is the typical term for actual fire fighting operations. Suppression forces are fire fighters and their equipment as they are involved in fire fighting.
Typical fire suppression equipment includes pumpers, trucks equipped with high performance fire pumps; aerials, trucks with ladders or sometimes a platform which is a bucket on the end of a ladder; and other support equipment which may include special trucks, trailers or vehicles for special types of fires.
In our department we have three front line pumpers. Each is equipped with either a 1250 or 1500 gallon per minute fire pump. Engines 8, 9, and 10 carry lots of equipment and fire fighters to fires in the City. In most cases two of the three pumpers will be assigned to a house or structure fire in the City.
For times when one of the front line pumpers is out of service we employ a reserve pumper, engine 11, which carries the same equipment as any of the front line pumpers.
The department has just ordered a 103 foot aerial platform capable of pumping 2000 gallons of water per minute. We expect delivery sometime around April or May of 1999.
We also have several special purpose types of apparatus, a support van which carries extra equipment for fire fighting, a trailer (towed behind the van) which carries special equipment for handling chemical emergencies, and a Fire Boat which is designed to support fire fighting efforts along the water side of Front Street.
All of this equipment can be seen on Our Equipment page.
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