BY MARK E. DAVIS
In 1998, Winfield Community (MD) Volunteer Fire Department Station 14 in Carroll County began upgrading its service delivery effectiveness through numerous equipment and technology purchases. The department is a small, progressive rural department in central Maryland about 30 miles west of Baltimore. It provides fire, rescue, and EMS services to about 15,000 people in a 64-square-mile area, of which about 95 percent is nonhydranted.
Over the past four years, the department equipped all of its engines with five-inch large-diameter hose (LDH) and upgraded all SCBA to high-pressure units with integrated PASS devices and emergency breathing support system connections. The department also placed in service a new 3,500-gallon, 1,500-gpm elliptical tanker to improve its water delivery capability and equipped its primary attack engine with high-volume attack lines, new portable monitors, a remote foam delivery system, and a thermal imaging camera (TIC). The department put much of its newly acquired fire suppression technology to use when it faced a stubborn, subsurface mulch fire at a local airport.
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