NFPA 1900 Deep Dive

Join Bruce Quick and Jason Witmier in this episode of Rig Recon Live as they delve into the newly released NFPA 1900 standard. They discuss its origins, significance, and key changes, including apparatus requirements, vehicle data recorders, electronic stability control, electric fire trucks, backup cameras, and more. Gain insights into how these standards impact fire departments and apparatus manufacturers, and learn about the review process and public comment period. Don't miss this comprehensive breakdown and stay informed on the latest industry standards.

Chapter Markers:

00:00 Introduction and Housekeeping
01:13 Website Updates and New Content
02:00 Introduction to NFPA 1900
02:22 Understanding NFPA Codes and Committees
05:14 History and Evolution of NFPA Standards
06:53 Key Changes in NFPA 1900
10:04 Public Comments and Industry Feedback
16:06 NFPA Compliance and Liability
22:09 Annexes and Best Practices
33:14 Backup Cameras and Video Systems
37:08 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Rig Recon Live - Ep. 5 - NFPA 1900

[00:00:00] 

Bruce Quick: This is another episode of rig recon live. I'm Bruce Quick alongside Jason Witmier to be back here in the booth. If you say before we get started, let's do a couple of housekeeping items. If you haven't already makes you subscribe to us, wherever you get your podcast, you can also subscribe to us on YouTube as well as find us on social media at rig recon on Facebook and Instagram.

And then the most important part, if you haven't already make sure you visit www.rigrecon.com where [00:01:00] you can find all sorts of information, whether it's product guides, FAQ videos technical videos, how to videos, and a ton of more content that expands deeper to the topics that we talk about this podcast.

So, Jason, it's good to be back recoding some more episodes here rig recon 

Jason Witmier: live.Absolutely. And you know, you mentioned the website. I think the important thing for people to know is it's growing every day. So we, we just keep finding more and more content. We're getting great feedback from the people that are using it. So, so please visit it often. We really want to build this up to be something that can help you.

Bruce Quick: Yep. And that's exactly right. And as Jason said, it's growing every day. The team just got back from a long filming session in New York at FRC, where we went to some local fire departments and we filmed maybe 20 or so more videos that talk about, you know, product overviews, how to's and FAQs. So definitely more content coming. All the [00:02:00] time. This topic of this episode, episode five here at Rig Recon Live, we wanted to talk about NFPA and specifically the new NFPA standard that has been released NFPA 1900. Jason, I know there's a couple of things in here that are pretty important for end users to know. But before we get into 1900, maybe if you just wanted to talk to us about sort of what the code is and how we sort of came to that today.

Jason Witmier: Sure. It's, believe it or not, it's an exciting topic for me because as someone who worked in the apparatus manufacturing industry for a while, it's the Bible. I mean, it is the guide on how you have to build a fire truck and codes you need to meet. And there are so many people that. They'd look at it and go, it's a whole bunch of pages of useless information.

That's not true at all.

Bruce Quick: And

Jason Witmier: defined as a minimum standard. So the goal of the code was to create a standard that would say every firetruck, no matter who you buy it from, no matter who makes it, there's these minimum standards that you're going to meet [00:03:00] so that the crews can be assured that they're protected.

So there's all kinds of detailed information in there about, you know, weight ratings on an apparatus. tire ratings, crash protection, how the pump should be set up properly. It's, it's not meant to tell someone this is the only way to build a fire truck. There are many ways to build a fire truck, but these are the minimum things you must meet when you do it.

Bruce Quick: so how did. code get created and how is it sort of revised each year?

Jason Witmier: So the code itself consists of all of the NFPA codes have what they call technical committees. Your technical committee is actually kind of complicated. There's roughly 30 people there. There can be more than 30 people. But what they look for is a mixture of different people in the industry. So you're talking some of our OEMs who build fire trucks will have representatives.

You're talking people, organizations like the International Association of [00:04:00] Fire Chiefs the Volunteer Fire Council, just chiefs from big departments who do a lot with apparatus. And then industry experts, including insurance companies, research facilities. You bring all of these people together to create this panel. The panel is responsible for reviewing that document and revising it to make it this minimum standard to get. Organizations have to apply. There are only a certain number of seats. And then there's a, a primary person who is your person who has the vote. And there is their alternate in case they can't make a meeting, someone that can go in place of them. You actually have to fill out a fairly lengthy application to become a primary or an alternate and that application requires, requires a resume, it requires references.

I mean, they really go in depth to make sure that the people they're putting on here really know what they're talking about and are part of this industry.[00:05:00] 

Bruce Quick: It seems pretty extent to the amount of experts. So you haven't have in one room. How long has NFPA sort of been a thing and, and, you know, how often. Has it changed over the years?

Jason Witmier: So, so the history of the code, it first was established back in 1906. So, so the code's pretty, pretty old. We're going back to the first motorized apparatus here. When this code started, the international association of fire chiefs has been involved with this code and with NFPA since 1912. So there's always been someone in there on the fireside, not just the apparatus manufacturers.

The key here was. They didn't want the apparatus manufacturers to create this code that overcomplicated a vehicle and just drove the price up. It truly was meant to be a minimum standard, not a maximum. Some of the big changes over the years, 1991 was a major rewrite for the code [00:06:00] and it changed an awful lot of things in the code.

That's when they broke it out and kind of said, okay, let's have a code for pumpers. Let's have a code for aerial apparatus. Let's have a code for tankers. And while you did need different things for each of those apparatus, you probably didn't need an entire code book dedicated to each of those. So in 1996, they kind of reeled it back in.

And they said, okay, let's make it one document that, that can cover everything, but have different chapters for each different piece. So that, that really 1996 was kind of a standard and for years, it's been the 1901 code, which gets very confusing because I mentioned the year 1906 when it started, I mentioned 1991 when there was a major revision, but 1901 was the actual code number.

Just this past year or this year now in 2024, there was a mandate from [00:07:00] NFPA to consolidate some codes. So we previously had NFPA 414 was for ARF apparatus. You had NFPA 1906 for wildland apparatus. You had NFPA 1917 for ambulances. An NFPA 1901 for fire apparatus. NFPA realizes there's too many codes out there.

Bruce Quick: So the Standards Council had a guidance to consolidate things up. That created NFPA NFPA 1900. So 1900 covers All of those codes that I mentioned, ARF, Fire Apparatus, Ambulances, and Wildland. There are specific individual chapters that address each one, but they're all living in one major document now. Right. Gotcha. So one large document, you have a technical committee of experts that goes over and reviews it. I'd imagine it's probably hard to get them all in the same room every single year. So can you talk a little [00:08:00] bit about the cadence of how NFPA comes up with the code and sort of when it comes out with the code?

Jason Witmier: the Standards Council has established that every three to five years these codes, any NFPA code that exists, These codes need to be reviewed and, and possibly revised. And a lot of times your revisions can be very simple. It could be that technology changed. So we're considering new things to put in.

It could be that technology changed so much that there's old things in there that need to come out. With such a large document, there's always mistakes that can be made. So you're out. We're reviewing and looking for those mistakes to, to try and take those out. The current code right now was just revised recently.

And the way it works is if you have an apparatus on order today that you ordered, unfortunately a year or two ago, because [00:09:00] anybody in the apparatus industry knows it takes a long time to get a firetruck these days. Your, your code goes by the date you signed that contract. So you would be under the old code if you purchased it before January 1st of 2024.

If you purchased. After January 1st of 2024. So you purchased this year, then you need to meet the new current code. Now, the way that code works, that code's out there. It's accessible to anyone for free to view online. If you want a printed copy of it, you have to buy it. And when you do view it online, it can be a little clunky to look at because it's, it's literally a PDF that you're scrolling through and you can't really search it.

There is a service you can subscribe to through NFPA called NFPA Link. That is a paid service and that really lets you search and digest portions of the code and store portions of it that may apply to specifically what you're [00:10:00] doing. What's important for everyone to know, anyone in the industry, anyone in the industry.

Firefighter down to your rookie level, there's a, there's a period of time called public comment. And that public comment is open right now. It's open now until September of 2025. So right now, anyone in the general public could look at the code and they could look at section 8. 9. 1 and say, I don't agree with this.

And they have to submit a public comment with justification why they don't agree with it, what they think should be changed. And anyone that submits a public comment, it must be reviewed by the committee. So even if you just submit a comment that says, I don't like this,

Bruce Quick: Right.

Jason Witmier: we as a committee have to sit down and review that and digest it and then respond to it.

That public comment is open now. So it's important people look. I

Bruce Quick: Are public comments pretty common or is there something a lot of people don't know about [00:11:00] necessarily?

Jason Witmier: think a lot of people don't know. I think a lot of the public comments that you see, they all get published and a lot of the public comments you see will be people that are on the committee or part of the committee or people who work for an O. E. M. Where your committee has a consensus agreement on something, but an individual may have a different opinion.

So that individual will then put it in as a public comment to make everyone talk about it again.

Bruce Quick: Gotcha. That makes sense. So it's a large document, you know, 375 pages of information, several sections. We talked about NFPA link that, that sort of helps you streamline the process. Could you talk a little bit about maybe the chapter references and how those work?

Jason Witmier: Sure. So you, you've got several chapters that break up into things like the crew compartment area, the body compartment areas, the, the cab itself, that, that all breaks out in the main body of the code. And the way that this code is [00:12:00] referred to is the main body, those are the shalls. These are things that you shall do if you're building a firetruck.

So they're kind of the rules that you have to follow. Any piece of the code that has an asterisk after it. So if I'm in section 8. 4 and I see a little asterisk after it, that means there's a reference in the annex. Annex A is an expanded section. So while the main code is your minimum requirements and your shalls, the annex is giving what we consider to be best practices.

And these are saying, while I insist you do this as a code, I think you should take it even further and do this. So the annex expands on things to give people a good idea of how else they might make something work. A good example of that would be the color coding of a pump panel. So in the code, it specifically says, Any [00:13:00] discharge and gauge should be color coded.

It doesn't tell you how to color code it, it just says you should do it. The Annex has a section that expands it. And says we recommend that Discharge 1 be this color. And Discharge 2 be this color. So from a builder's standpoint, if the customer comes in and says, Well, I don't want red for Discharge 1.

Okay, what would you like? I need to make it a color because of the should section, but I don't have to specifically make it red. If you don't tell me what you want, then I'm going to follow the Annex.

Bruce Quick: sense. Okay. So I've heard Annex F is a little controversial. Maybe you can help us explain what it states and then maybe what the purpose of it is.

Jason Witmier: There's a couple Annex sections and, and let's, let's dive into Annex F right now since you mentioned it. Annex F came out several years ago and when it first came out, there were a lot of people that kind of got up in arms about it. Annex F made a [00:14:00] recommendation for replacement cycle on fire apparatus.

Now it's important to understand that times have changed. A fire truck 10 years ago that cost 375, 000. Today, that fire truck costs nearly a million dollars.

Bruce Quick: Right.

Jason Witmier: Back in the day, a million dollar truck was the most complicated tractor drawn aerial on the market. Now, a tractor drawn aerial could exceed two million dollars.

So, replacements are tough. One of the arguments that's always been made in this service is, look at the garbage trucks driving around town. You don't see people driving around in a 15 year old garbage truck. They're typically maintained and replaced. But yet you see fire trucks on the road that are 20, 30 years old that are traveling at a high rate of speed with a crew inside that's going to do a life saving operation.

Bruce Quick: Right.

Jason Witmier: So what annex F really looked at was it said, okay, let's not just look at [00:15:00] the age of a rig. Based on the condition, because let's face the facts. A lot of these fire companies really do a great job of maintaining their rig. But as the code changes year in and year out, and that rig gets older and older, it's no longer meeting the current codes.

And it would be very difficult to bring a 15 year old rig up to the current code. Cause you get into things like structural changes of crash testing and things that we learn as we advance in this industry. So NSF made a recommendation that any rig 15 years or older be placed into reserve status, and that's assuming that the rig has been properly maintained.

It further went on to say that any rig 25 years or older should be completely retired. This sent some shockwaves to the fire industry. Of course, there were some people that said, who are you, NFPA, to tell me when I have to take my rig out of service? Or better yet, are you going to give me the [00:16:00] million dollars to buy a new one?

You

Bruce Quick: And that kind of leads me into the next question I think is perfect. So there is sometimes this sense in the fire industry of you know, confidence. If I know how to run my fire department and my fire crew what if I don't want to follow an FPA? Are the police going to come get me?

The FBI going to like raid my fire department? What's going to happen here?

Jason Witmier: mentioned a funny subject there and, and it's exactly right. Fire departments, a lot of times your bigger fire departments that do this day in and day out say, I know what I'm doing. Why are you telling me how to do my job?

Bruce Quick: Right.

Jason Witmier: the first thing is, that's where this code, it kind of got out of control for a little while and we've reeled it back in.

Bruce Quick: Mm.

Jason Witmier: before, minimum standard. This is the starting point. It's not supposed to go beyond that. So I'll give you a great example of something that changed in 2024. Prior to 2024, we would, in the code, tell people specific equipment they had to carry on their apparatus. [00:17:00] And finally, the standards council looked at it and the technically looked at it and said, why am I telling them the exact number or length of hose they have to carry?

And what size hoses? That's not a minimum standard. A minimum standard is telling you, you need to carry a hose to put the fire out. It's quite obvious. That's part of your base

Bruce Quick: right.

Jason Witmier: what you go after or what your job is, your core competencies. So they took a lot of that out. They defined as an apparatus manufacturer, you have to give them so much space to put this equipment on.

But a lot of stuff was taken out telling him. what equipment they needed to carry. Now I've heard mentioned before and you said it and it's funny, the NFPA police.

Bruce Quick: Mm-Hmm.

Jason Witmier: NFPA is not a law. And that's the first thing you'll hear someone say. If you're sitting in a pre construction and you're fighting about this code, a firefighter may say, and if he's not the law, there's nothing that says I have to follow that.

You're [00:18:00] kind of right, but you're a little bit wrong too. I'll give you an example. It all comes down to something we're all too familiar with in, in life, and that's liability.

Bruce Quick: Yeah.

Jason Witmier: So the example would be let's controversial subject in NFPA, top speed, NFPA, I forget what year it was, it's probably been over 10 years now that NFPA changed and put a top speed in.

Any fire apparatus heavier than 52, 000 pounds or carrying more than 1, 250 gallons of water, or has a top speed of 60 miles, 60 miles per hour. If you're under that weight rating, but over 33, 000 pounds, which is just about any fire truck, your top speed is 68 miles per hour. So if you have someone come in and say, I want to exceed 60, I've got this big tanker and I go out in the interstate a lot and the speed limit's 70 and you're limiting me to 60.

Okay. So you sign this [00:19:00] statement of exceptions that says, I want to go faster than 60. And just to be clear, most manufacturers aren't going to allow you to do that. But let's say you find the manufacturer that lets you do that. Now you get in an accident and you're sitting in court and no, there's no NFPA police.

There's no one that came out and inspected your rig and said, you didn't meet the code, but now you're sitting in court and you're up on that witness stand. And the lawyer walks up and he grabs this code and he says, I've got this 375 page book called NFPA 1900. And he sits it down and he says, in this book, a group of your peers, you know, 30 people that are industry experts have determined that you shouldn't be able to go higher than 60 miles per hour.

Chief, what made you violate this code? What made you decide that you were better than what the code said, that you were smarter than that? And now I've got someone that's dead because they died in a vehicle accident [00:20:00] that there's, there's no law that's going to arrest him for that, but all of those people in that jury box are now sitting there going, Oh, so there's this accepted standard and you decided not to follow it now.

Now, along with that, there are things in the code that, Right. And there are things in the code that might not necessarily cause a life safety hazard. So, so color of Chevrons was a big controversy for a number of years. The code specifically said the Chevron striping on the back of the rig had to be red and yellow.

And, and it was good intentions on someone's part where they said, let's define all vehicles in the industry that are red and yellow striper firetrucks. So it doesn't matter whether I'm in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Nevada, if I see red and yellow stripes that are shining on the back of a truck, that's a fire truck.

Well intentioned, not [00:21:00] necessarily going to work because there's several vehicles out there. A lot of departments of transportation vehicles already use red and yellow. So it, so it didn't necessarily matter. And that was the type of thing that you could sign off on there. You can sign your way out of some things in the code.

It's called a statement of exceptions. So all of your apparatus manufacturers want to build a truck that meets the code because they don't want to hang themselves out there with the liability. The key is if you come in and you change something then they're going to give you a statement of exceptions.

So you're either going to get a document that states that you fully meet the NFPA 1900 code or you're going to get a document that says you meet the code except for these two or three areas And you're going to sign off saying, yes, I asked you to not meet the code in those areas, which somewhat transfers the liability onto that fire chief.

Now, instead of the apparatus manufacturer, it's a very gray area. Any lawyer will tell you it's not easy to transfer [00:22:00] liability. You're all still going to get called to court when something goes wrong. I think that answered your question on the, the NFPA police. I do want to back up two other things. I just want to mention on the annexes. There are several annexes out there and annex A is the part that gives you the shoulds and expands on the code. Annex D is a really helpful document that tells a fire department, if you're specing a rig and you're going to buy a new rig, here's some things you should consider.

Here's some best practices. It's not, it's not something that's going to get thrown at you in court and says, why didn't you follow this one? It's It's just a recommendation. And then Annex D, one of the problems we face in the fire industry is overloading of apparatus. Now, we give you this big toolbox with these massive compartments, and by nature, we want to jam every piece of equipment we possibly can into them compartments.

We're going to, fire departments are always going to plan for the worst. So [00:23:00] I've got to carry this one tool that I use one time every 15 years. and it adds weight to the truck. Weight balance is critical when it comes to keeping that rig in service and safe. What we do in Annex E is we make reference to a weight and cube calculator that exists on the FEMA website.

That weight and cube calculator gives a fire department the ability to go down through a list and put a check mark next to everything they're going to carry. As they put that check mark in, it automatically calculates the total weight of that apparatus. The manufacturer has to tell you how much payload you have available.

So if I say your rig is rated for 52, 000 pounds, when it's built, they're going to tell you it currently weighs, I'll pick a number, 30, 000 pounds. So you have 22, 000 pounds of payload available to you. Now your water is going to factor into that, your hose and your equipment are going to factor into that.

Bruce Quick: Your personnel are going to factor into that. This [00:24:00] cube calculator gives you the ability to work all that out and find out ahead of time, whether you're going to meet the code and be under the proper weight. So NFPA 1900. goes or went into effect. I should say January 1st of 2024. And then it's going to be there for the next five years. What are some key takeaways from 1900 that end users should be aware of?

There, there are some really good documents out there. Anyone that follows the trade show or the trade magazines, there's lots of articles on what changed, but there are some things people should be aware of. One of them is several years ago, it was controversial when it happened, but vehicle data recorders were required on fire apparatus.

Jason Witmier: What a vehicle data recorder is recording is all of the information on the chassis. What speed was I traveling? Were my warning lights on? Were my occupants belted in? Did I have a heartbreaking incident? It recorded all [00:25:00] of that.

Bruce Quick: Mm-Hmm.

Jason Witmier: those are no longer required. Now I will say that most OEMs are still going to install it because it kind of protects them in the long run.

But because this is a minimum standard, the requirement to have them was taken away, a really cool feature that came into the industry several years ago is called ESC. Electronic Stability Control. Electronic Stability Control is looking at the brakes and the pitch of the apparatus. So if I go into a hard turn and I start to go into a rollover situation or I start to lose control of it, Electronic Stability Control will automatically interact with the brakes to try and bring my vehicle back under control.

That was recommended previously. That is now required as long as it's available. And what I mean by that is all of your custom fire apparatus can make it available. But if you use a commercial chassis, so if you use some of the [00:26:00] commercial chassis, when we talk commercial chassis, we're talking about international Kenworth, Freightliner, Ford, those type of chassis.

Bruce Quick: Right?

Jason Witmier: it's available, you're required to put it on. If they don't have it available, that's a big industry, that commercial chassis, and we can't force them to make it available. So, so then it wouldn't be required. Electric, electric fire trucks have come into the fire service over the past it's, it's probably five to six years that they've been in development, but they've really become more prominent in the last two to three years.

So there were parts of the code that made reference to things that. would technically make a truck non compliant if it were electric. The code's been rewritten to consider those electric things. I mentioned the equipment. We used to tell you exactly what length of ladders you had to carry, how much hose and what size, what type of appliances you had to have on the rig.

Those have all been moved to the Annex now. So it's basically saying, [00:27:00] here's some references in the annex of what people think you should carry, but it's up to you on what you should carry. Code still defines having the storage ability to carry the things, but it doesn't tell you what you need to carry.

Bruce Quick: Right. Mm-Hmm.

Jason Witmier: lights have been a controversy over the last few years. As LEDs came onto the market, you know, we did our led lighting podcast that talks about how great these things are. Same thing applies to warning lights. Well, we almost went too far where seeing a fire truck as you approach a scene became a distraction.

The warning lights were there to say, something's going on up ahead. Slow down. Instead, they became blinding. Get the lights bright enough in the daylight. They became too bright at night, so they've added to the annex. It's not gone into the main body of the code at this point, but they have added to the addicts to the annex, a dimming feature that when you go into night mode, the warning [00:28:00] lights can dim down and not be quite as bright.

Bruce Quick: Okay. Mm-Hmm.

Jason Witmier: cameras. Any car you buy today probably has a backup camera on. The technology has come tenfold from what it was a few years ago, and the price has gone way down. Believe it or not, when we do write these standards, safety is the core critical function. We do look at cost. We, we, we realized that some things might not be realistic.

So backup cameras are realistic these days, and those are now required. A very controversial one is seating. There's been arguments over the years on how many people you should be able to put inside that apparatus cab. And while they didn't change the code to limit the number of people inside the cab, they did make some changes to it where you need to define the number of If your seat is a primary position for seating or a secondary, what [00:29:00] that means is if it's a primary position.

So if I'm in the back of that cab and you'll see some cabs that had four seats going across the rear, all forward facing, that gets pretty tight. And it's pretty difficult with four seats across the cab. for us to don our SCBA and be in a seatbelt.

Bruce Quick: Right.

Jason Witmier: We're locked on the width. I mean, you've got DOT codes that we can't make these rigs any wider.

When you get inside that cab, you've got a big doghouse for an engine. So we, we have limited space. So what the code changed is if I've got primary seats in the back, there's a certain width that I need at the shoulder. And I believe it's 27 and a half inches is the new code. Don't quote me on that.

reference the document.

Bruce Quick: That's right.

Jason Witmier: But the point is I can't get four seats across that fit primary people. Now, there are times where I say, well, two of those are primary positions, but the other two are secondary so that the [00:30:00] guy can sit in a more comfortable seat when he's not on the way to a fire. He's on the way back and maybe there's no SCBA in that seat.

So those are allowed to be a little narrow. So if you define them out, you can fit the number of seats you want, but you won't fit four across with SCBA anymore. You'll be limited to three if you follow the code. Same thing applies to seatbelts. One of the problems we had over the years, people weren't wearing their seatbelts and to make it a minimum standard, they really push to find ways to encourage people to wear their seatbelts more.

And the liability really falls back on the officer. The officer of that rig is in charge. He's supposed to know that everyone's safe and belted up. So they added seatbelt warning systems that he could look on the dash and see who's belted. They also changed the color from black to red or orange so that if he scanned around the cab, he could easily see.

One of the problems we ran into were the commercial chassis, [00:31:00] something like a Ford F 550. Well, those seatbelts come from the manufacturer and they're in there from Ford and Ford doesn't have red or orange belts available.

Bruce Quick: Right.

Jason Witmier: Ford's also doing their own seatbelt system, which wouldn't tie into our system to put indicators up there.

So the code changed to say that a small vehicle like that, I can very easily look around the interior 550 and see if everyone's belted. Whereas in a big custom cab, I can't necessarily see the guys in the back really quick. So on those smaller chassis, they remove the requirement for the indicator and they remove the color requirement.

Controversial. And I talked about a little earlier with Chevron striping

Bruce Quick: Yep.

Jason Witmier: and, and we, we have people writing statement of exceptions all the time. I don't want red and yellow. I have a blue fire truck, so I don't want red and yellow on the back.

Bruce Quick: Right.

Jason Witmier: And what the committee looked at in the long run was. As long as it's got that [00:32:00] pattern, as long as it's got, there's a code on how reflective it has to be.

As long as that's all there, what does it matter whether it's blue and white or red and yellow? So the colors have been removed. It's now up to the fire department. You have to have the chevrons. There's a specific pattern they have to be in. There's a specific reflectivity. But we don't care what color it is.

That's up to you as a fire department. One other minor one that I'll mention is the, the aerial outrigger pads. So there, there's a pad that you needed to put underneath your outrigger to distribute the load. So you weren't putting too much pressure on the ground.

Bruce Quick: Sure.

Jason Witmier: That code used to say it was 75 pounds per square inch.

When you're taking a big aerial device and raising it up on three or four jacks, That made a very large pad that you had to carry, and it came from an architectural code. When you looked at the rig itself, with the four tires, when the jacks were in, those four tires were putting more than [00:33:00] 75 pounds per square inch onto the ground.

So why, why did my aerial have to be more stringent? So they've increased that to 100 pounds per square inch. Which makes them capable now of shrinking those aerial pads down a little.

Bruce Quick: So I want to circle back to portion you talked about backup cameras, right? Seems like that's a pretty big addition to the code. And especially I wanted to highlight it because on rig recon. com under the topics, we do have a section about video systems. So to get a backup camera now. And once again, as it is with all fire apparatus, there's a million different options that I'm looking through all sorts of different products. Maybe if you could highlight sort of what we talk about on re recon about the FRC systems in our backup camera.

Jason Witmier: Sure, a simple backup camera is so affordable these days. There are wired options. Wired is still the default because when I'm building a truck from scratch, it's very simple to [00:34:00] run a wire from the front of the cab to the back of the body and install that. It is required that you have to, it has to come on automatically when you put it in reverse gear.

You do have options whether there's audio or not. Audio is not required by the code, but if you want audio so that you can hear the guy yelling directions back there, that's an option you can build into the camera system. It's an option whether you have a dedicated camera or a dedicated screen for it, or if it pops up on your multiplexing screen.

That's going to come down to your OEM and how you want it installed. But then there's so many more options you can take beyond that. The code saying you must have that same simple backup camera, or they may even refer to it as a rear vision system, two camera systems, three camera systems around the vehicle, three 60 systems.

They all exist. They've all become much more affordable. The code doesn't require them, but [00:35:00] since it does require the backup camera, if you've already gone that far. It's very simple to go the whole way and do something like a 360. Nothing says the cameras have to record. Most of them on the market have the ability to record.

There's a lot of different debates out there. Some people want them recording. Some don't. I'll give you a quick piece of advice that I tell fire departments. You know, the first thing they say is I don't want to record it because someone can use it against me. You get in an accident and you did something wrong.

The odds are very high that if, if you weren't recording it, someone else was. You're going to see a traffic cam that caught it. You're going to see someone's personal camera that caught it. Conversely, let's say something bad happened and you were in the right. You did everything correct. Odds are someone caught it on camera.

The odds are they're not going to share it with you now because that doesn't get them attention. You were the good guy here. If you recorded it and you did it the [00:36:00] right way, Now you've got that to exonerate yourself and show that your people did everything right. Bottom line, everything's being recorded out there these days.

So we, we shouldn't be afraid of it. We should embrace it and use it the right way. One other final thing I'll say on backup cameras, if you've got an older rig, so we talked about these aging rigs that we want to keep in

Bruce Quick: right,

Jason Witmier: and bring something up to code and adding a backup camera to an older rig, very simple these days because we have wireless options.

So as long as there's 12 volt power at the back of that rig, which there absolutely is, because you've got lights back there. You can hook that back up, the camera up, you mount it, you hook it to 12 volts, you hook up a screen in the cab to 12 volts, and they will wirelessly communicate to give you that image.

Sure.

Bruce Quick: right. And again, if you want to learn more about video systems, you can visit recon. com. We have a topic page about it. [00:37:00] Of course, if you are specifically interested in the FRC 1, you can always go to fire research. com as well, where there's a ton more information about our video systems. Jason. This was really good.

We really broke down and FPA and FPA, 1900. You know, hopefully people have a little bit more of appreciation of where this is coming from, right? Safety driven and it's really for the embeddement of the fire industry. As we get ready to wrap up here, are there any final comments, final things you'd like to say about the, you know, NFPA and NFPA 1900?

Jason Witmier: I'd like to, we talked all about NFPA 1900 today. That was our subject. There are other NFPA codes that affect all of us. There's there's N. F. P. A. 1500, which gets into health and safety. That gets more into your gear and what you do around the firehouse. An important one for the fire apparatus is N.

F. P. A. 1911. N. F. P. 1911 talks about service and maintenance, and we're not going to dive all through that code here. We're at the end. But there's one [00:38:00] little thing in there that most people miss that, that is important. In NFPA 1911, it states that the tires on your firetruck must be replaced within seven years.

And that's based on a date code on the side of the tire. Whether it's Michelin, Goodyear, or any other tire brands, you can look up the date code. There'll be a letter or a sequence of letters that tell you when that tire was manufactured. This is critical because if I park a vehicle in a garage And I don't move it for seven years.

The tread's gonna be brand new and perfect. But if I pull that rig out, and that tire has dry rotted at all, and it blows, the insurance companies know to come looking for that date code. If they find out that tire was older than seven years, You got a lawsuit on your hands. So it's something that everyone needs to be aware of.

Obviously, if the tire wears in less than seven years, you need to replace it based on wear. But even if it's brand new, [00:39:00] after seven years, you must replace it.

Bruce Quick: that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up. So this concludes another episode of rig recon live. If you haven't already, you need to check out all the other episodes that we've put out. We've put out ones on scene lighting, pump sizing, foam products, and you know, the synopsis of what is rig recon. is episode five. We're talking about NFPA, NFPA 1900. If you haven't already, you can find us wherever you get your podcast. Make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube, where you can watch the video version of this podcast and follow us on social media at Rig Recon on Facebook and Instagram. And then most importantly, we hammer it every time you got to visit www.

RigRecon. com because this is the full library of everything Rig Recon. And you can even watch this podcast or listen to this podcast on the website. So until next time, spec the best . [00:40:00]