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Firing up at the first responders’ summit in Sydney

Scania Australia has been a supplier of vehicles to firefighting and emergency services agencies in this country for over four decades.

The Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) Conference and Exhibition held in Sydney from September 3-6 allowed attendees to view the current specification P320 Crew Cab fire pumper appliance. 

“We are really celebrating our long-standing relationship with all the firefighting authorities around the country, and this is a good example of a modern heavy-duty pumper that we do; it is our most popular firefighting model,” said Alexander Corne from Scania Australia.

Shortly to be put to work in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide for the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service, the Scania has been fitted out with bodywork by Fraser Engineering Group, complete with pumping gear and full slew of firefighting and rescue tools and equipment.

The safety of personnel travelling in an emergency situation is paramount with the truck featuring a number of in-built features to provide a safe working environment.

“Safety is one of our core areas for emergency services vehicles, and Scania is the only manufacturer to have a curtain airbag on every door which prevents serious injury in a rollover,” Alexander explained.

“We have had features such as traction control and anti-skid/advanced emergency braking for a very long time and the airbags offer another layer of rollover protection, plus the cab is all steel built and built in factory to Scania’s standards.”

Powered by a Scania DC09 127 engine rated at 360hp which is coupled to an Allison 3200 6-speed auto transmission with a retarder, the appliance also features a rear diff lock, driver’s airbag, seatbelt pretensioners, LED daytime running lights and fully automatic climate controlled-air conditioning.

With Scania a popular choice for emergency service organisations globally, within Australia various models are put to work in a variety of applications from pumpers through to aerial platforms (skylifts) and bulk water carriers.

“We are very happy with this type of business, the 8×4’s with the skylifts on them is something we do particularly well and around the world Scania does a lot of fire-service work,” said Alexander.

“Fire crews love their Scanias, they get in them and go, they have a great ‘cold start’ performance. These trucks travel harder and faster than any other trucks – obviously, they don’t do as many kilometres as other trucks, but they have to be reliable. We also do some emergency service work with police search and rescue units.”

With the continual development of electric vehicles, emergency services is one area where Scania is targeting and having displayed a 25 P-Series BEV model at AFAC 2023 in Brisbane, Australia will be one of the first countries to receive the Crew-Cab version of the 25P-BEV when it goes into production shortly.

“With electric there is a demand in Europe, nobody yet is doing a crew-cab with EV – we believe we will be the first. It makes sense in this perspective in that a truck could be sitting for most of the day in the fire station on charge, and when they do go out on a job it is relatively local so range distance wise isn’t a huge issue,” said Alexander.

“If they were at a fire for a longer period of time you can always recharge but the benefit would be zero noise. If say they were at a house fire in the middle of the night the benefit would be zero noise and emissions with a diesel motor running. It depends on the working environment too of course so if you pick the application, it would probably work quite well.”

Having exhibited at AFAC for a number of years, the association between Scania and the fire services sector extends to sponsorship of the annual Melbourne Firefighter Stairclimb which raises money for a number of charities including Lifeline and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation.

The company has also assisted the Fire Services Museum of Victoria with the restoration of historic fire appliances, including a ‘Mark 3’ pumper which was the first Scania unit purchased by the former Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade (now Fire Rescue Victoria) and was commissioned to commemorate both 100 years of Scania and the MFB in 1991.

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