r/Firefighting • u/spazzymoonpie • Jul 23 '25
Photos Any insight on this truck from Greenville, NC?
I was just perusing other departments in my state and came across this oddity. Has anybody seen a truck like this? Im assuming a firefighter rides in the back-back?
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u/Zestyclose_Crew_1530 Jul 23 '25
When an engine and an ambulance love each other very much…
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u/SquirrelNormal Jul 23 '25
That thing isn't the result of love. That thing came from hatefucking.
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u/Negative_Way8350 Jul 23 '25
The kind where you just know you are so regretting this in the morning, but the alcohol and loneliness are flowing.
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u/Prudent_Echidna1254 Fire Medic on a Meat Wagon Jul 23 '25
It’ll still respond to a 3am call for a 6 month old with hiccups. But now with a growler.
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u/Helpful-Contract393 Jul 23 '25
I used to work there and rode/drove this thing, everyone that works at GFR hates the sta 4 "Frambulance". The one in the picture is the older one of the 2. It worked okay as an ambulance since it has a legit box, but it's a terrible engine, with the cafs system always being oos and having an underpowered pump.
The newer one, that is typically in service, is a Pierce with a decent pump, and serves well as an engine, but terrible as an ambulance since it has a mid mounted cramped half box thing with a weird lift system as a means to load the patient.
Although weird, it works ok for the station that its at, and keeps minimum personnel at station 4 down to 3 (Station Officer (paramedic) , Engineer, Firefighter) instead of 5. Station 4 is the slower station averaging somewhere between a whopping 2-4 calls a day
At GFR most personnel are dual role(peak truck/prn only serve as ems) everyone is atleast an EMT, and every station officer is a paramedic. The majority of ambulances are dual emt with a paramedic qrv or fire engine responding.
Its a great place to work, and i really enjoyed my time there. Now that the current chief is retiring, im sure things will change for the better.
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u/spazzymoonpie Jul 23 '25
Do FF's get sent by GFD to paramedic school for officer development? Are laterals hired for this role?
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u/Helpful-Contract393 Jul 24 '25
Nope, if you dont want to become a paramedic you dont have to, however with the current career development plan, you will never promote . If you want to go to medic school, once hired, you can apply for a sponsorship and the dept will then pay you to attend class at a school of their chosing and theyll cover all associated costs. However, thay make you sign a contract and you have to stay at the dept for a minimum of 2 years, or pay them back. And yes they do lateral hires, but you wont be hired as a station officer, youd have to earn that.
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u/spazzymoonpie Jul 24 '25
Is paramedic to be completed on your own time? Can you go to class on a shift day?
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u/Helpful-Contract393 Jul 24 '25
They work a 24/48 so you can go to class if it lands on your shift day, you just have to be a big boy about it and communicate it with your station officer before hand. Although, if you go on one of your off days(which some days youd have to) , you get paid for your time in class. Go on a shift day while on duty, you dont get paid extra.
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u/dangforgotmyaccount previous intern Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 25 '25
Seeing the photo of the newer Pierce one…. Missed opportunity to make it a shorter wheelbase truck with a rear mount pump…. THEN maybe they might be on to something. Having the pump directly behind the box just seems like such an unnecessary extension when it could have been moved literally anywhere else. Hell, even made as a PUC would have helped to get the panel size down
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u/Helpful-Contract393 Jul 24 '25
Definitely the worst driving apparatus in the city. I doubt they'll buy another 😂😂
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u/Fallout3boi Shameless Plug: Check out r/FireHelmentCollecting Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 24 '25
I can tell you it's a Braun box and it looks to be on Pierce enforcer chassis. This is not the first Engine/ambulance combo they've bought. But it is certainly the most unique.
Edit:Could be a Rosenbauer commander, but the department appears to use majority Pierce.
Correction: it has been pointed out that it is actually a Spartan. Not a Pierce or Rosenbauer like I thought.
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u/newenglandpolarbear radio go beep Jul 23 '25
2 Notes, This one is actually older than the Pierce, so it actually is the first lol, and it's probably a spartan, not a Rosenbroken or a Pierce.
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u/JimHFD103 Jul 23 '25
A Type 6 Patrol with a smallish pump, 300 gallon tank, and a Booster reel (maybe a couple hundred feet of 1" bundles to boot) probably has just as much effective firefighting capacity as this thing does... and is far more capable of going off road to deal with brush/vegetation fires. This would be limited to small rubbish and other nuisance fires... like maybe a small kine car fire at most? (If it has a 500+ gallon tank with the space taken for the medical compartment...)
If you reaaallllyyyy need to combine an Apparatus with an Ambulance, a Rescue would make more sense, storing battery powered tools (won't be able to run a full Extrication by itself, but if it can pop some doors without needing to upgrade alarms that a typical Ambulance would have to do already...)
And even then.... better/more efficient to just buy a regular Ambulance and Rescue (mini or other) unless you plan on throwing away enough money to buy way more rescues than you ever would otherwise
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u/themakerofthings4 Jul 23 '25
I'm sure there's a super niche call where that would be awesome, but that call has yet to happen, and probably won't for another million years. I love the article claims it reduces costs but then points out the obvious that once it gets put on a call, your resource is down.
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u/No_Zucchini_2200 Jul 23 '25
Broward Fire runs a more engine and less ambulance variant on Alligator Alley, 80 miles of nothing but Everglades.
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u/bikemancs Jul 23 '25
And I thought our pumper tanker was long... how big of a parking lot does it take to do a U-turn?
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u/Clean_Ambition_1282 Jul 23 '25
Looks like it’s at Station 4: https://www.greenvillenc.gov/government/fire-rescue/fire-rescue-stations
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u/TheWhiteRabbitY2K Jul 23 '25
Ive worked in that area as a nurse. Theres tons of rural area with a variety of 'ecosystems ' that I imagine make complex responses. The geographical location I found made flying difficult often. More importantly, there's alot of land covered only by volunteer departments with fewer and fewer memberships...
There was a write up about it.
But yeah, What Texas Said.
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u/Nemesis651 Jul 23 '25
Greenville isn't a rural area. Ya they might help the surround but it's a city in its own sense.
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u/TheWhiteRabbitY2K Jul 23 '25
The city itself isn't, but the areas around it that is serves is. City is a strong word though, unless its grown alot since I had a stopover
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u/Nemesis651 Jul 24 '25
Pretty sure Greenville is in the top 10 largest cities in the state of North Carolina. It's a city. It's not some podunk One stop light town
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u/SpecialistGrouchy341 Jul 23 '25
And here I thought this was only a thing in the game MissionChief. 😂😂
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u/Old-Illustrator-5246 Jul 23 '25
I don’t get it if you think about it if they’re transporting, they could SF or CF or call like that one engine it’s gonna be able to cause an average turnaround on the medical call at least in a metro area 10 minutes dispatch leave on scene 20 to 30 minutes on scene treating patient and then the 10-20 minutes to transport that whole time you just put out an engine from going to a call
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u/MammothWrongdoer1242 Jul 23 '25
I was excited to find this thing next time I visited my parents, but alas, they live in Greenville, SC.
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u/No-Guidance1328 Jul 23 '25
They are made by Braun. Called the Braun patriot. They are on a spartan furion chasis. 300gal CFAS system.
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u/Accomplished-Suit595 Jul 23 '25
Both pieces of apparatus pictured within this thread are garbage. One is a glorified brush truck with an ambulance on the back. 300 gal tank and a CAF system. Not even rated as a pumper. The other is at least rated as a pumper but still has the ambulances body that would interfere with your firefighter getting dressed because of clean cab. These trucks do make a lot of sense when you actually see who is making decisions within this department though.
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u/chuckfinley79 27 looooooooooooooong years Jul 23 '25
I thought when I first saw drawings of this thing when they first came out and it had a hosebed on the roof of the ambulance but I could be wrong.
A department near me used to have 2 “transport engines” that loaded a cot sideways in the jumpseat.
There’s a department in Florida that has a remote station that covers a big stretch of highway. They have a rescue pumper that has what’s basically an ems room so they can bring people inside the air conditioning and away from the snakes and gators. I don’t know who it was but there was an article in one of the fire magazines about it years back.
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u/MuscularShlong Jul 23 '25
Our technical rescue squads used to have to transport, I assume thats what this is. Inside full of rescue equipment with just barely enough room for a stretcher.
Luckily they dont have to transport anymore so they can focus on their rescue capabilities.
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u/Accomplished-Suit595 Jul 23 '25
No that is a straight ambulance in the back. The only tools on this is a married set, and a hook. All that stays in those roll up doors along with the turnout gear
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u/Slight_Can5120 Jul 23 '25
Yea, okay, if that thing has a 200 gal tank, & class A foam system…could be useful for a vehicle fire until the real engine shows up.
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u/ShadyCans Jul 23 '25
I seen a couple of these when I worked for an oem. There's also ones where the back is a command center, or recoup area. Both seem more practical.
I mean whatever people wanted they would build.
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u/a-pair-of-2s Jul 23 '25
firemen who need big massive ambulances to feel more masculine while running medical calls.
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u/Complete-Bass-9431 Jul 23 '25
Gentlemen I just looked at some of the rigs that this department has and it gets even worse. They have a fire truck that is fully dedicated to trying to be a fire truck and an ambulance the one up above is what they call Ems for and from what I can tell is meant for only EMS duties this rig was meant with the intent of meeting EMS duties and fire duties. *
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u/Serious_Cobbler9693 Retired FireFighter/Driver Jul 23 '25
Sorry, I know you have serious burns and need to get to the hospital - but we are pumping water for the fire and can't leave yet.
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u/FederalAmmunition Jul 24 '25
so its an ambulance with a pump and room for no other engine tools, great, always wanted that
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u/MrM1Garand25 Jul 24 '25
Can you even fight a fire if the ambulance bit takes up most of your space for gear??
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u/Expensive-Barber-283 Jul 24 '25
The patient compartment can be filled with water so it can operate as a tanker too. Preferably without a patient on board.
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u/blue-stream Jul 23 '25
This looks like an idea from someone with absolutely no fire department experience whatsoever.
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u/AvatarofApollo Jul 23 '25
I mean, I’d drive the fuck out of that. I’d want to use it as a water/high angle unit for MCI and SAR’s for our rescue medics.
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u/Complete-Bass-9431 Jul 23 '25
You know I used to volunteer at a department that pretty much only ran EMS because we had really no one on the Fireside to do Staffing so as a result we always jokingly called the fire truck the heavy ambulance seeing this now is absolutely disgusting
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u/WideConversation3834 Jul 24 '25
"A jack of all trades, master of none is oft' times better than a master of one". Except here. This is dog shit.
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u/Subie_southcoast93 Overpaid Fireman/ Ambulance driver Jul 24 '25
This truck was the result of a "yes man" Chief and town leadership who knows nothing about FD operations and just looks at the FD on a spreadsheet
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u/BlitzieKun Career, Tx Jul 24 '25
The only way I could see this working would be for a mobile lab. We have a few units in Houston that run inside the 410 loop, and they are dispatched only for strokes.
They are type 1's, however, and built on medium duty chasis trucks.
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u/gtwhite313 Jul 24 '25
I’m not sure about the hospitals in Greenville, but I don’t see this thing fitting in any ambulance entrance in the Birmingham area. I guess just park it on the street and push the stretcher.
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u/tinareginamina Jul 25 '25
I’ve never been more embarrassed for someone in my life? Who signed off on that thing?
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u/wcdiesel Texas Emergency Manager Jul 23 '25
Engine/Ambulance combo, a perfect example of attempting to do everything in one apparatus and as a result doing nothing well. Usually only two firefighters on a piece this style due to its ambulance functions