左，联邦协调官的马克·内维（Mark Neveau）和第三区洛杉矶县主管的Zev Yaroslavsky在Olive View-Ucla医疗中心的新闻发布会上，在Sayre Fire中燃烧的50多个辅助建筑物。芭芭拉·普里查德（Barbara Pritchard）/FEMA摄影。
由马克·华莱士（Mark Wallace）
Elected officials, key stakeholders, and/or the media often ask really tough questions that put fire officials on the defensive for proposals or operational practices. They expect us to have logical and compelling explanations to all of their questions and at a moment’s notice. Therefore, it is helpful to consider answers to their questions in advance.
The really tough question for this part of the series is:
“为什么我们的消防车必须如此之大，要花很多钱？”
这个看似直接的问题充满了您的消防部门无意间将讨论扩展到意想不到的争议的潜在挑战和机会。此外，这是一个问题，其答案必须与引起上述问题的情况特别相关。
这可能与拟议的购买或考虑提议请求，考虑接受“最佳”出价或社区中发生的特定事件的结果，例如机动车事故，one of the department’s fire apparatus.
这个问题是我的另一个常见原因s when developers for new subdivisions are proposing relatively narrow streets or designs with a single access point. Communities located in areas of rolling hills or other terrain challenges face this question frequently. The infrastructure of a subdivision is an up-front cost for the developer, and the more area covered by common streets and right-of-ways results in less land that can be sold as building lots. Allowing a developer to build 26-foot wide streets (flow-line to flow-line or curb-to-curb) instead of 36 feet could result in nearly 28-percent more land available for sale. In residential subdivisions, property owners naturally want to park their cars in front of their home. Today, many families have at least two cars, and those with teenagers often have more.
这确实是一个数学问题。只需将汽车停在街道的每一侧，就可以将路边的车轮在流线线处。然后，测量从一辆汽车的外镜到位于街对面的汽车的外镜的距离。然后测量消防设备的最大宽度（外边缘到镜子的外边缘），垃圾车和校车。通常，垃圾车将是最宽的车辆。现在，将其中一辆车停在街上，并测量花药车辆驶过的距离。(For example: 6.5 + 6.5+ 10.5 = 23.5 feet for a 26-foot street and 12.5 feet for a 36-foot street.) If they don’t believe the math, set up a live demonstration and invite elected officials, schools officials, trash company leadership, developers, and community street engineers to attend.
Another common situation happens when a community is considering various “traffic calming” measures. These are physical or visual obstacles designed to slow down traffic. They are quite common, and some are more effective than others. Rely on the math, and use the school buses and trash trucks as well as your fire apparatus. Remember, to get all of the needed dimensions including the following:
- 最小转弯半径。
- Inside minimum radius using the non-steering wheels.
- 外部（壁壁）半径，因为这些车辆在前轮和后轮外面有伸出的部分，即塔架梯子延伸到前轮和前轮保险杠之外的一段距离。
- Outside (curb-to-curb) radius to keep the wheels inside the curb’s flow line.
- 清除细节。
- Ground clearance.
- 接近角度[使前保险杠或尾板不会拖动并损坏车辆（通常是7％至10％的角度）]。
- 出发角度。
- 高度细节（这些车辆的所有部分的最大高度，通常在模型消防代码中指定为14英尺）。
The good news is that your local situation, coupled with an upcoming meeting or interview appointment, will, in most cases, give you the opportunity to prepare your answers in advance to the likely questions that will come up based on your current situation. Although most of us are striving for smaller, lighter, and more fuel-efficient vehicles, the fire service has not been on the same bandwagon when it comes to our major fire apparatus, i.e., pumpers; ladder trucks; heavy rescue; and crash, fire, and rescue vehicles.
即使对消防部门来说很明显，但提出这些问题的人可能不会给更大的思想与紧急响应惯例相同的思想水平。有些人可能会问这个问题只是为了当场，另一些人可能会问这个问题，以使您有机会再次证明您的部门如何完成其使命。您的答案必须与那些提出问题的人产生共鸣。
With such a high percentage of our emergency responses associated with emergency medical incidents rather than large structure fires, what prevents us from having a fleet of specific use vehicles that are much smaller and more efficient?
有关的：《艰难社区问题的消防官指南》，第1部分”《艰难社区问题的消防官指南》，第2部分”《艰难社区问题的消防官指南》，第3部分
One of the things that many people in our communities don’t often think about is that we have no idea when the next emergency will occur and what the nature of that emergency will be. We have to be ready instantly for every type of emergency. We also don’t get to choose if we have multiple incidents at the same time or run from one incident to the next incident with no time to recover or to restock or change equipment. As a general duty fire department, the next incident could involve virtually anything, and we may have to respond to the next incident with only the equipment we carry with us on our apparatus.
Now, the larger the fire department, the more opportunity there may be for specialization, but the vast majority of fire departments in the U.S. are relatively small and do not have a large redundancy of services to eliminate the need to respond to “back-to-back” emergencies on occasion. The result of this is that, to be properly prepared, you must carry the best compliment of equipment or tools on your apparatus for the types of incidents you are most likely to be deployed to resolve. To do that, the vehicle must be designed to carry the systems, appliances, and tools necessary to do the best possible job for your community.
希望这种简短的讨论将开始收集所需信息的过程，以期待这个非常棘手的问题。
马克·华莱士(MPA, EFO, CFO, FIFireE) is the author of消防部门战略计划：创造未来的卓越。他是俄勒冈州的前州消防元帅，也是科罗拉多州和德克萨斯州的前酋长。他目前经营Fireeagle Consulting（www.fireeagleconsulting.com）。他在2014年秋季发行的第七版消防局手册中写了计划章节。
