Salisbury New Arrivals

Photo from SalisburyFD.com

Photo from SalisburyFD.com

On December 12, the SFD took delivery of their first of three new International "Terra Star" Horton ambos.  This for Medic 1 one of three to replace the three '05 International Medtecs that have pounded their share of  pavement in and around Salisbury. The oldest in the fleet are an '03 Ford, AEV and an '02 Ford , Wheeled Coach that will likely be retired the better of the replaced '05 models as reserves. All of the SFD new arrivals are painted in the SFD's new livery.

 Some new arrivals for the Salisbury FD of Wicomico County. The first on November 21,  2010, is a new Freightliner "M-2" Hackney designated Air Light 1. Equipped with a 40kw PTO generator, 26-cfm compressor and 40 air bottles this presumably replaces Air Light 2 the '95 Chevy, Beaverbilt that ran from Station 2 at Brown and Naylor Streets. This is assumed running from Station 1 on Beaglin Park Drive

New For Ocean City FD

Photo from OCVFC.com

Back on December 12, 2011 the latest additions came to the Ocean City FD. Both are 2011 KME "Predator" models with 2000-gpm rated Waterous pumps, 550-gallon water tanks plus 50-gallon foam cells. Each is also equipped with a 15kw generator and with jaws for extrication duty. Both also are similar to the previous two KME's running as E4 & E16 Of greatest interest is their unit designations Engine 1 and Engine 2.While one of the engines to be replaced is E2 the '98 Interstate Mack rehabbed '85 Pierce Arrow the other is E9 a '85 Ford "F-700", Pierce with the current E1 a '01 Pierce "Dash". So what does this mean? Best guess is a re-numbering of OCFD suppression units so as to correspond with the station numbers like the medic units. Stay tuned as this bears further investigation. Next due by this spring is a new fire boat..

Roster Updates

Just uploaded to the Storefront. New updated rosters for Baltimore-Annapolis, DC-MD Metro, Lower Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland. Coming soon NoVa Metro plus something new Middle Maryland.

Water Rescue 1

A new unit designation Water Rescue 1 can be heard on OCFD radio. Here's what it is -shot at the recent Harbor Fest event. It's a 2005 +/- model year Chevy "Suburban" equipped with a slide out rear tray with SCUBA packs. The shop number is 789. A crew member believed it came from the FM office. It carries a line gun, various water rescue suits and related rescue devices. It is intended as a rapid access response vehicle better able to access the beach than say Rescue 7. It currently runs from Headquarters. OCFD has about a dozen certified divers and about twice as many rescue swimmers. Of course when the Beach Patrol is off duty (5:30pm-9:00 am summer and always in the off-season) surf rescue duty goes to the fire department. In other news the new fireboat is coming along and expected by spring 2012. As reported old Engine 12 the Spartan Alexis removed from service last spring has gone to the Glover FD in New Hampshire. To the south, Stockton is expecting very soon a new Peterbilt, Pierce elliptical tanker.

Old Montgomery & PG County Pics

Burtonsville VFD Station in 1955. Photo by Martin Best.

Some great 1950s and 60s pics of Montgomery & P.G. County have been posted on Rusty's Rosters Facebook page. 

These include stations and incidents of a by-gone era. Please go and "Like" the page. The link is facebook.com/pages/Rustys-Rosters/119074768163990. 

Plans are to add more of these over time so check back here and on the Facebook page. Feel free to comment and or add info on what you see.

Wisconsin 1000

Here's a link to a circa 1950 video about the B-CC Rescue Squad. http://youtu.be/D882Y5UEOR4 Some great old footage (I haven't seen this vid in some 30 years). Note the station that was at 4800 Fairmont Ave off Wisconsin Ave now the site of an office building. This was originally the home of the short lived and by then defunct VFD of Bethesda that was an off-shoot of the original Bethesda FD. Note as well the "old" Suburban Hospital (where I was actually born) as it looked in the day.  Also of mention is the Super Surplus store as I believe was owned by Donald Dunnington. I have spent many an hour in there. Shown as well is the GMC squad truck as described in a previous post about B-CC rescue wagons. Would love to know the body builder on that. Many thanks to Mike Sanders for forwarding this gem. The link again is http://youtu.be/D882Y5UEOR4.