Simon Corbell is celebrating the roll out of eight shiny new fire tankers:
- Mr Corbell said the eight new medium tankers had been built at a cost of $146,000 each with a total investment of approximately $1.17 million dollars,” he said.
“The state-of-the-art new vehicles have been funded by the ACT Government as part of the ACT Emergency Services Agency Fleet Replacement Program and will further enhance our bushfire fighting capability in the ACT and support to other emergencies ahead of the 2009/2010 bushfire season.”
The new vehicles will be distributed to Guises Creek, Gungahlin, Hall, Molonglo, Parks, Southern, Rivers and Tidbinbilla ACT RFS brigades.
And there’s even tech details for the gear nerds:
- “The new medium ACT RFS firefighting tankers come complete with foam inducted pumps, on a four-wheel drive, 5 speed manual Isuzu NPS 300 single cabin chassis and can carry 1550 litres of water,” he said.
“They are fitted with crew protection sprays to improve safety and boom sprays for grassland fire fighting. They can carry additional equipment, not capable of being carried on the smaller light units they are replacing due to limited space and weight restrictions.
“The medium tankers can fit three fire fighters as opposed to two in the light units which adds another dimension to the ACT RFS fire fighting capability.
And apparently there are another eight heavy tankers on the way!
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In other firey news, Mr Stanhope has announced that three lucky firefighters who work in TAMS are off to Canada to see how they do things over there, and to help out:
- Mr Stanhope said the fire fighters would form part of a 30-strong contingent from Australia and New Zealand.
The fire fighters – Scott Farquhar, Simon Bretherton and Simon Butt – work within the Department of Territory and Municipal Services.
Apparently Scott Farquhar also went to the US last year for the California fires.
