Altus Airmen procure fire trucks for base

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Megan E. Acs
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- --  Members of the 97th Logistics Readiness Squadron were recognized during a promotion ceremony on August 31.

The 97th Air Mobility Wing Flaming Spear was presented to the fire truck and refueling maintenance shop and the vehicle operations flight for their efforts in locating and acquiring two P-19 fire trucks. The trucks, which came from Vance Air Force Base, and Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, replaced a P-23 fire truck, which became inoperable due to a catastrophic transmission failure.

Each base has certain requirements for fire response capabilities, depending on the size and mission of each base.

"There's a certain amount of gallons the firefighters need to be able to pump. With the P-23 down, the firefighters were at exactly the minimum number of gallons needed," said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Michael Gallagher, 97th LRS NCO in charge of fire truck and refueling maintenance. "If another truck went down even for only an hour or two, they would have to close the flightline. They wouldn't be able to let any trucks come in for an oil change, a tire, anything."

In this situation, it would be a liability to land aircraft here, so the aircraft would have had to be deferred to a different landing strip, said Gallagher.

Altus AFB needs to be able to provide a minimum of 7,200 gallons of water in order to maintain flying operations.

"If we drop below that and can't support the aircraft mission, we notify the wing commander and he makes the decision of whether or not to suspend the flying mission," said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Robert Davis, a 97th Civil Engineer Squadron fire station chief.

With the additional P-19s, Altus is now above the necessary requirements, which allows the trucks to undergo routine servicing without disrupting the mission.

The P-23 carries at most, 3,300 gallons of water and 500 gallons of foam, and each P-19 carries 1,000 gallons of water and 130 gallons of foam. Though the two P-19s combined don't carry quite as much water or foam as the P-23, they were requested specifically because they are more reliable vehicles and also easier to fix if malfunctions occur.

"The firefighters who have worked with these older P-19 fire trucks have been requesting them because the P-23s aren't as reliable," said U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Tucker Lysholm, 97th LRS fire truck and refueling maintenance journeyman. "We did lose roughly 1,000 gallons of capability, but losing 1,000 gallons versus the reliability of these old trucks is worth it. They're old, but they're simple, which makes them easy to maintain."

Because there are so many little things wrong with the P-23, Lysholm said it was more time efficient and worth the cost to replace the defective parts.

"It's to the point where it would just be a waste to try and figure out exactly what is wrong with it. In this case it's worth it just to replace it," said Lysholm. "In order to get the P-23 back up and running, it will take roughly $100,000 and an estimated 150 man hours to replace the engine, transmission and power divider."

In order to obtain the two P-19s in a timely manner, members from the fire truck and refueling maintenance shop and the vehicle operations flight had to work long hours and come in on weekend days.

"Nobody complained," said Gallagher. "We know how important it is these trucks stay running. They're specialized trucks and when they break down it's a high priority to get them fixed."

The flaming spear award recognizes a unit on base every month, and is presented by the 97th Air Mobility Wing commander at wing promotion ceremonies.