Image above: Pickett Volunteer Fire Department’s HEMTT fire truck. KXII photo.
KXII has a story about a wildfire in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma where the Pickett Volunteer Fire Department used their huge 2,500-gallon wildland fire truck to help extinguish a fire near Ada (map). The vehicle is based on the military’s Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT), an eight-wheel drive beast manufactured by Oshkosh Truck Corporation. Many variations of the HEMTT were made and are still being used by military organizations around the world to carry cargo, Patriot Missiles, rockets, and portable bridges. There are also several varieties of fire trucks based on the HEMTT that hold from 1,000 to 2,500 gallons.
Wikipedia had this information about one of the firefighting versions:
The M1142 is a Tactical Fire Fighting Truck (TFFT) capable of extinguishing aircraft, petroleum, brush, and structural fires at isolated military installations. The TFFT is based on a HEMTT M977A2 chassis with the heavier duty M1120 LHS HEMTT variant rear suspension. The TFFT contract was awarded to Pierce Manufacturing with Oshkosh Corporation as a subcontractor to Pierce.
KXII wrote:
It cost the town only $30,000 through a government program that gives counties retired military equipment.
A vehicle like that would normally cost tax payers about $500,000.
Let us know in a comment if you know of other fire departments using a version of the HEMTT as a fire truck.
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(UPDATE February 14, 2016)
One of our readers told us about a Maine Forest Service fire station in Greenville that has at least one HEMTT.
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(UPDATE February 16, 2016)
Pat sent us these photos of HEMTTs that are in Idaho.
