Roger Mardon fire service history

Fire service historian and author

Roger Mardon

www.romar.org.uk

The following account of the running order for deploying a high volume pumping unit (HVPU) is illustrated by photographs of various exercises involving the appliance and crew of the Kent Fire & Rescue Service unit based at Whitstable. I am grateful to Kent Fire & Rescue Service for their co-operation in the preparation of this article and especially to Crew Manager and HVP instructor Graeme Browning and the Whitstable retained crew for their assistance and support.

Whilst it is intended as an outline for those interested, it is technical up to a point but hopefully will be readily understood by non-firefighters. You are advised to read the description of an HVPU on the preceding page first in order to acquire an understanding of the component parts of the unit. The HVPU needs five operators to deploy and recover but can be left in the charge of two firefighters once set up. It has a crew of two and runs with a support pump.

On arrival at the scene the first thing is to identify a suitable unloading area. The whole HVP module, comprising Hydrosub pump module and hose box on their Duo container, is demounted from the prime mover by means of the hook lift system.