Engine 405 parked on the pavement outside the McKean Hose Company station with its red warning lights lit and the American and Pennsylvania flags flying behind it.

McKean Hose Company

Apparatus

Engine 405 parked on the pavement outside the station with its red warning lights lit, the American and Pennsylvania flags flying behind it and an open bay to the right.

Engine 405

Year
2020
Chassis
E-One Cyclone II 6x4
Pump
2,000 gallons per minute
Tank
2,000 gallons

This is usually the first thing out the door. It carries our water, the pump to push it, and the hose to get it where it has to go. That's why an engine handles most of what we get called for. There's a national standard for what you can even call an engine: the pump has to move 750 gallons a minute and the tank has to hold 300.

Full side view of Engine 405 showing the pump panel, the ladders racked along the top of the body and the STATION 40 lettering on the rear compartment doors.

Fire hose is made in fifty-foot lengths, so we load it and pull it back off the truck by the length, not by the foot.

Engine 403 angled toward the camera on the pavement outside with its warning lights lit, ENGINE 403 lettered on the cab door beneath the McKean Hose Co. crest and an open bay door behind it.

Engine 403

Year
2013
Chassis
E-One
Pump
1,500 gallons per minute
Tank
1,000 gallons

The second engine goes out when a fire takes more water than one truck carries, when two calls come in at the same time, and when a neighboring department asks for help and one of ours leaves town to answer.

Full side view of Engine 403 with ladders racked the length of the body, roll-up compartment doors closed and STATION 40 lettered above the wheel well.

Pump ratings come in set steps: 750 to start, then up by 250 at a time. There's no such thing as a 1,600 gallon-per-minute pump. You pick a rung on the ladder, not a number.

Rescue 408 on the pavement outside with its warning lights lit, McKEAN HOSE CO. RESCUE 408 lettered in red and gold along the body and another engine sitting inside the open bay behind it.

Rescue 408

Year
2004
Chassis
Pierce Enforcer
Body
Rescue, opens all the way around

This one carries tools instead of water. Most of the time that means getting somebody out of a wrecked car. It carries the hydraulic spreaders and cutters, the wood blocks we use to keep a car from shifting while we work, and the lights to see by. Every compartment opens from the outside, so we can grab what we need without climbing in after it.

Full side view of Rescue 408, its roll-up compartment doors closed, showing the body that opens all the way around and the McKEAN HOSE CO. RESCUE 408 lettering across the full length.

Those hydraulic tools got their start at a racetrack. In 1961 George Hurst watched a crew take over an hour to cut a driver out of a wrecked stock car and decided there had to be a faster way. What he built went public in 1971 as the Hurst Power Tool. The nickname everybody uses came later.

Ambulance 407 parked outside the station, angled to show the back corner of the patient compartment lettered McKEAN HOSE CO. STATION 40 AMBULANCE, with 407 on the cab door.

Ambulance 407

Year
2017
Chassis
Ford E-Series
Body
Medix

This is the only one here built to take someone with us instead of working at the scene. It's a treatment room on wheels. We start working on someone in the driveway and keep at it the whole way to the hospital.

Full side view of Ambulance 407 with the blue Star of Life on the side door of the patient compartment and the red chevron stripe running along the box.

That six-barred blue star on the side is the Star of Life. It was designed at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and registered in 1977, after the Red Cross objected to ambulances using a copy of its cross. The staff and snake in the middle is the rod of Asclepius, an old symbol for medicine.

Truck 409, a white Ford Super Duty pickup, angled on the pavement in front of the open bay doors with McKEAN HOSE CO. TRUCK #409 lettered in gold on the cab door and diamond-plate toolboxes in the bed.

Truck 409

Year
2011
Chassis
Ford F-350 4x4
Role
Brush and support

It goes out when a fire is in a field or along a treeline, or when the way in is a dirt path instead of a road. It's four-wheel drive and no bigger than a pickup, so it gets onto ground the engines can't, in mud or snow. It hauls people and gear too, when one of the big trucks would just be in the way.

Truck 409 head-on outside the station, warning bar lit across the cab roof, with the raised McKEAN HOSE CO. lettering on the brick wall behind it.
Full side view of Truck 409 showing the red body stripe, the gold TRUCK #409 door lettering and the diamond-plate toolboxes mounted across the bed.

Brush trucks have a national standard all their own, separate from the one written for engines, because the job is different. A brush truck has to reach the fire over rough ground. An engine has to bring the water.

In the bays

Three open bay doors at the McKean Hose Company station with Engine 405, Rescue 408 and Engine 403 nosed toward the pavement and a red and black SUV parked in the left bay beside racked firefighting gear.