Hamilton EMS/Police Discussions.

[The Crazy Hybrid]

Squad 1 is a light rescue that is running in the core of the city. Its district is the smallest in the city being 11 blocks wide by 26 blocks long. It is one of 3 units purchased about 8 or 9 years ago as an experiment. It was designed to move quickly through the heavy traffic and tight streets of the core. It works fine there but the other two did not work out as planned as Squad 4 and Squad 6. The others are now Squad 16 in Winona and Squad 28 in Freelton. The squads turned out to be maintenance pigs as driving with all of the stop and go in the city where killing them. Presently planned that by the end of the year Squad 1 will be sent to Rockton to become Squad 27.

Scheduled for an August delivery are 3 new heavy rescues from KME. They will be Rescue 1, Rescue 4 and Rescue 6. There will be changes in their responses. Rescue 6 will have added high angle rescue and confined space rescue. Rescue 4 will be also HazMat (They are doing some of this now) and Rescue 1 will have extra high-rise capability added to its job. All 3 will have extra breathing air capability added to their vehicles. There will be one rescue dispatched to all 1st alarm calls and on a 2nd alarm high rise fires, Rescue 1 will be added to the dispatch anywhere in the city.

ok cool

thanks for the info

[lfdlt17]

Whats the difference between a pump and an engine?

[The Crazy Hybrid]

Whats the difference between a pump and an engine?

i think its a mix of a Rescue and a Pump or like a Quint truck?

[Hamilton]

Whats the difference between a pump and an engine?

Hamilton’s engines are bigger than a pump with more compartments space. They have a larger vehicle extrication capability. They have almost as much extrication equipment on board as heavy rescue. They also may have other assignments that require extra equipment i.e. E 8 & E 11 are water rescue engines and E3 & E17 are high angle rescue engines. The pumps are just standard firefighting pumpers and actually carry more hose than an engine. All of Hamilton’s ladders are quints. At one time they ran ladders and trucks with a truck not having a pump on it.

[TheAverageJoe]

Squad 1 is a light rescue that is running in the core of the city. Its district is the smallest in the city being 11 blocks wide by 26 blocks long. It is one of 3 units purchased about 8 or 9 years ago as an experiment. It was designed to move quickly through the heavy traffic and tight streets of the core. It works fine there but the other two did not work out as planned as Squad 4 and Squad 6. The others are now Squad 16 in Winona and Squad 28 in Freelton. The squads turned out to be maintenance pigs as driving with all of the stop and go in the city where killing them. Presently planned that by the end of the year Squad 1 will be sent to Rockton to become Squad 27.

Scheduled for an August delivery are 3 new heavy rescues from KME. They will be Rescue 1, Rescue 4 and Rescue 6. There will be changes in their responses. Rescue 6 will have added high angle rescue and confined space rescue. Rescue 4 will be also HazMat (They are doing some of this now) and Rescue 1 will have extra high-rise capability added to its job. All 3 will have extra breathing air capability added to their vehicles. There will be one rescue dispatched to all 1st alarm calls and on a 2nd alarm high rise fires, Rescue 1 will be added to the dispatch anywhere in the city.

thats a nice small squad , lots of the metro NJ departments use small squads like that

[JN HSR]

Is there a standardized numbering system for the Fire Department and Ambulances? I see that the city of Hamilton prefix for FD is 30, i.e. 300661, but what do the last four numbers mean? Is the 06 the year like HSR?

[Hamilton]

Is there a standardized numbering system for the Fire Department and Ambulances? I see that the city of Hamilton prefix for FD is 30, i.e. 300661, but what do the last four numbers mean? Is the 06 the year like HSR?

The short answer is NO!

Now the long answer!

Before amalgamation, every municipality had there own system for numbering (fleet opposed to operational numbering) their vehicles. It stays with the vehicle from delivery to sold out of the fleet.

Hamilton used a 4 and 6 digit system for their vehicles. All city departments used 6 digits with 2 as the year and the fleet number i.e. – 95-8134. The first 2 of the 4 digit part designated the Hamilton department it belonged to i.e. 1661 was the fire department who had 16 as their designation. Fire did not use the year in their numbers. Stoney Creeks used 3 digits with the fire department having 700 as theirs. The other municipalities did not have a system.

Before amalgamation, the response numbering system for fire was 1 to 3-digit number preceded by 1 or 2 letters. Hamilton was 1 or 2 numbers i.e. P1, P18, R6, L10 etc. The county vehicles where 3 numbers i.e. P211, TK 424, R314 etc.

After amalgamation they had to come up with a way of numbering and take in account the large fleets coming together. They came up with a 6 number system to designate the new city departments and still track where they came from. This is important for fire, as they are still area rated and replacement cost go back to the original taxpayer in their service area. Hamilton Fire was given the first two numbers of 30 to 35. These numbers designate the original municipality that bought and had assigned to for fire department vehicles.

30 Hamilton

31 Stoney Creek

32 Dundas

33 Ancaster

34 Glanbrook

35 Flamborough

The next number is reserved for future use and used by EMS. The next three number where the original fleet number for Hamilton (minus the 1) and Stoney Creek and the 3 number response number for all of the others. In the first 4 years until the fleets where officially merged together and yes it took that long for it to happen, all new vehicles where assigned numbers based on their original municipality assigned to. So if you see a vehicle with a city # 310729 (R6) it was originally bought by Stoney Creek, 320216 (L24) was bought by Dundas, 300661 (SQ1) by Hamilton and 350411 (P47) was bought by Flamborough. After the fleets where amalgamated, they are just numbered the next number in a sequence based on their delivery date.

The letter designation for Hamilton Fire are:

P – Pump (Standard fire fighting pumps)

E - Engine (Large rescue pumps)

R – Rescue (Heavy)

SQ – Squad (Light rescues)

TK – Tankers

S – Support vehicles

C – Cars

L – Ladders (Quints)

T – Trucks (Aerial without a Pump) (Hamilton does not have any at this time.)

TW - Towers

DC/PC – District/Platoon Chiefs

AC – Area Commanders

M – Maintenance

B – Brush

The last assigned number was 300914 for HazMat 2. There are 6 new vehicle at the HES fleet centre being out fitted for service. Two are for the Area Commanders and 4 are for the District Chiefs.

EMS vehicle uses 44 as their first 2 city numbers. The Ministry of Health assigns the next 4. The first of the four number is the provincial area to which the vehicle is assigned to and this area is area 2. The next number is the type of vehicle. 1 is a single stretcher vehicle, 2 is a 2-stretcher vehicle and 3 & 4 are first response and support vehicles. 3 & 4 vehicles normally do not transport patients. You will see all three versions of the numbering system assigned to a vehicle. The front and back window have a 3 inch white official 4 digit number that should be in the same place on all ambulances in Ontario. This is the number issued to the vehicle by the ministry. The left and right backside is a large 3-digit number that is for easy identification of the vehicle (Used mainly by Hamilton). Usually the only 6-digit number is 1-inch numbers over the fuel cap. This is for maintenance and for entry into the fuelling computers.

2145 Single Stretcher Vehicle (i.e. Ambulance)

2245 Two Stretcher Vehicle (i.e. Ambulance)

2345 First Response Vehicle (i.e. Tahoe)

2445 Support Vehicle (i.e. Mobile Command Post)

Some ambulance have been transferred to Fire and either have their full EMS assigned number on them or have had the 44 replaced with a 30 series number. Like wise some Tahoe’s and Suburbans have been transferred to EMS from Fire and they retained their 30 series number i.e. C73 is 342261 (ex EMS ambulance 261).

I hope this is not too confusing. The numbering system was designed to track the vehicle for it’s entire life with the city as some may have a long and varied life i.e. R21 300672 (Located in Ancaster Station 21) started life as R9 then R4 to R2 to R4 to R21. It has been refurbished several time over time and most like does not have much of its original parts.

[David]

Does anyone know what happened today (April 4th) by McMaster? I was driving into work at about 4:00pm today and saw about 10 emergency response vehicles rushing code-4 to an unknown location off of Leland Street. Everything was responding from every direction! Here's an inventory of what I saw:

Dundas: 1x Ambulance, 1x Fire Truck, 1x Police Car

Main St. W: 1x Fire Truck, 1x Ambulance

Central: 1x F450 (Squad 1 I assume), 1x Police Motorcycle, 2x Ambulance, 1x Fire Tahoe (Supervisor)

As I walked into work I could still hear them going by. It was intense. Anyone know anything?

[Hybrid0920]

Does anyone know what happened today (April 4th) by McMaster? I was driving into work at about 4:00pm today and saw about 10 emergency response vehicles rushing code-4 to an unknown location off of Leland Street. Everything was responding from every direction! Here's an inventory of what I saw:

Dundas: 1x Ambulance, 1x Fire Truck, 1x Police Car

Main St. W: 1x Fire Truck, 1x Ambulance

Central: 1x F450 (Squad 1 I assume), 1x Police Motorcycle, 2x Ambulance, 1x Fire Tahoe (Supervisor)

As I walked into work I could still hear them going by. It was intense. Anyone know anything?

We will hear for sure on the news, but anything involving the fire Tahoe would be the report of a fire as the don't come for anything else.

[JN HSR]

The short answer is NO!

Now the long answer!

That's a very detailed and full description. Thanks for the insight.

[cooker]

A friend was mentioning that both Car 9 and Car 10 are now all white Ford F-150's . Will this be the same for the District Chiefs as well ?

Its also nice to see that they are removing the newer vinyl white signs from the rear windows of the Paramedic Response Units. I saw one yesterday that had paramedic response unit in white lettering on the windows. It looked a bit more professional.

[Hamilton]

A friend was mentioning that both Car 9 and Car 10 are now all white Ford F-150's . Will this be the same for the District Chiefs as well ?

No the district chief are going to be white over red Ford Excursion Max. Similar to a Suburban.

[Hamilton]

New Car 9 (C9). C10 in the same. They are used by the Area Commanders. They supervise the part-time/volunteer staff. They do not have any command presents at a call and are only administrative/support staff hence the white vehicle.

[JN HSR]

1XX= Central station (Downtown Hamilton)

2XX= Stoney Creek Station

3XX= Mountain station

There are random numbers mixed in as well, like a few expeditions are numbered in the 6XX like 691..

All new crown vics are numbered from 701 to around 730 I believe.

There are a bunch of new "unnumbered" Crown Vics sitting in Lockwood Motors, at the corner of Ferguson and Cannon for those who wanna check'em out.

Why are the new cars numbered 7XX? Are they assigned to specific stations or are they not station specific? I saw a 7XX with a 2XX yesterday down by Barton & Wentworth.

[Hamilton]

I believe 700 are spare vehicles that replace vehicles that are in for service. They are also a pool of extra vehicles that can be used when extra vehicles are needed i.e. a special event.

[David]

I believe 700 are spare vehicles that replace vehicles that are in for service. They are also a pool of extra vehicles that can be used when extra vehicles are needed i.e. a special event.

They seem to be used quite a lot, I see them all over town I would say more so then other prefixes.

[Hybrid0920]

I would not say spares, but maybe a mixed numbered series where a few belong to each station. I see them all over, some even parked in the mtn. Station. 747 is newest in service I believe.

[Hamilton]

One of 2 new Support Units. They are for large casualty and disaster calls. The 2nd one is expected in June.

Picture of the new unit and the one it is replacing. They only had one in the past.

[Hamilton]

The tender for One Rear Mounted 24.3 Metre (80ft) Aerial Ladder Platform and One Rear Mounted 32 Metre (105 ft)Aerial Ladder has been finally awarded to KME. I have not heard the time line for dilivery of these vehicles. Only large vehicle order left for in 2010 is one engine and it looks like most of the fire prevention fleet will be replaced this year.

Being built are 1 sprinters (for mechanical division), 3 heavy Rescue's due in September or October and 1 HazMat vehicle due in August. This similar to a heavy rescue but will be only 2 feet shorter then an ladder truck.

I will be posting this week picture of the new multi services training complex under construction at the old SFRC site.

[Hamilton]

The new Fire Station 5 and the new "Multi Agency Training Centre" also it will be known as Station 22. This is at 1227 Stonechurch Road East. Station 5 is expected to be open in the early fall and the rest in early 2011.

The training centre will house:

• Fire and EMS headquarters
  
• A new fire communications centre
  
• Fire training academy
  
• EMS training centre
  
• Police gun range
  
• New training facilities for Police
  
• New outdoor training areas
  
• New burn house
  
• New burn high rise
  
• Confined space, trench rescue and high angle (rope) rescue facilities
  
• Full indoor training facilities. They will be able to do most evolutions indoor including natural gas burn and fully extend a ladder truck
  
• And much more.
  

Front of Station 5

Rear of Station 5

Administration building

Front of the training centre

Rear of the training centre

[Hamilton]

2 of the 4 new District/Platoon Chief's vehicles. They should all be striped by next week. They are installing the new radios (for the new system) and MDT's. They will most likely not be in service until the end of August as the roll out rear trays will not be ready until the middle of August.

[Hamilton]

New Chief vehicles. There are 4 of them.

District Chief 2

Platoon Chief

Spare vehicle FS4

I did not get a shot of District Chief 3

[cooker]

New Chief vehicles. There are 4 of them.

District Chief 2

Platoon Chief

Spare vehicle FS4

I did not get a shot of District Chief 3

Thanks for posting Hamilton. Are there any updates on the future arrival of the new Rescues or Hazmat

[Hamilton]

Thanks for posting Hamilton. Are there any updates on the future arrival of the new Rescues or Hazmat

New HazMat being delivered tomorrow, September 21st and the 3 new rescue around the end of October.

[Hamilton]

First pics of the new HazMat vehicle. They will start on stripping this week.