Cornwall Airport Newquay Rescue and Firefighting Service has added a new incident-command unit to its front-line fleet. The vehicle was locally sourced, converted and delivered to the airport by Cornwall’s oldest motor dealership, the Hawkins Motor Group, established in St Stephen in 1933.
The incident-command unit is based on the robust Peugeot Boxer 435 L4/H2 panel van, fitted with a six-speed manual transmission and a 2.2-litre, 130bhp Blue HDi diesel engine. The Boxer was specified with a partial bulkhead and with nearside and offside sliding doors.
The van has been innovatively partitioned and fitted out to a high standard by Hawkins Motors into three separate, dedicated areas as specified by the client. Behind the nearside glazed sliding door is a small but fully functional forward-command suite, fitted with a small desktop area accommodating two-way radios, a tablet computer, fixed whiteboards plus site mapping and additional small stowage.
Behind the offside sliding door is a shelved area housing dedicated crash-rescue apparatus including a Holmatro ‘Greenline’ combi rescue tool, DeWalt reciprocating saw, Husqvarna rescue saw/disk cutter, Vetter lifting bags, Argus thermal-imaging camera, a Class D dry-powder extinguisher and other related equipment.
The rear of the van has been extensively fitted out and now accommodates a vast selection of medical supplies, a portable generator, additional lighting, an inflatable rescue shelter, Passenger Evacuation Management System plus other mass-casualty-related equipment formerly carried on a dedicated trailer-based unit. The three areas of the van plus all the stowed apparatus are easily accessible.
One of the fundamental reasons for the layout and the multi-function design of the vehicle was to remove the reliance on the need for support from other airport staff to transport additional equipment to an incident scene and to enable a self-sufficient RFFS.
The Boxer features windscreen, rear, side and roof-mounted 360° hi-visibility emergency-response lighting, retro-reflective ‘Battenberg’ decals, side scene lights, internal lighting throughout and a nearside retractable awning used to increase the incident-command area. It is finished in the operator’s all-new corporate livery.
The incident-command unit, which was designed in-house by the airport fire service working group, is believed to be the first combination of its kind to be commissioned by a UK airport fire service. It was executed to a very high standard and locally by the Hawkins Motor Group, which had the added bonus that the airport project team were easily on-hand, at short notice, to oversee the project and to assist the supplier throughout the build process. A number of other UK airports have also shown a specific interest in this prototype vehicle.
SAFO Charles Dixon, Cornwall Airport Newquay Rescue and Firefighting Service added, ‘The new vehicle was recently tested at a joint emergency exercise and found to be a huge improvement on our previous 4×4 command vehicle. Some really positive comments were received from responding external emergency service Operational Commanders and the command area fully supported the principals of JESIP.
For more information, go to www.cornwallairportnewquay.com or www.hawkins.co.uk
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