MFB plans to procure more spl purpose vehicles

The Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) plans to procure six more special purpose vehicles with a water pump reaching up to 50 storey. The vehicle will help tackle fire incidents in high-rise buildings. Currently, the fleet has one such vehicle purchased in 2021.

In 2015, the MFB added the 90m snorkel to its fleet which can scale up to 30 floors and has a turntable ladder and elevated water pumps to conduct firefighting and rescue operations.

“There are several highrise buildings in the city, where carrying out firefighting and rescue operations is always cumbersome and difficult,” said the fire officials. The arms of the special purpose

The vehicles will help tackle fire incidents in high-rise buildings and can reach up to 50 storey

vehicle can extend horizontally up to 55m.

Currently, when the fire breaks out in narrow lanes, the fire engines are forced to park on the main road and the fire officials have to run their hose pipes through these lanes to the location.

The special vehicle can stretch over other structures even if the fire breaks out in a congested area with narrow roads. It can also easily douse fires in slum areas. Around 10,000 litres capacity water tanker attached to the vehicle also has a pump that can send up 300 litres of water per minute.

The vehicle purchased earlier was used during firefighting operations on 42th floor of 44 storey building at Dadar east in January 2023. “The fire fighting equipment in many high-rise buildings is found to be non-functional. In such cases special vehicles with high-pressure pumps will help in firefighting and send up water to the higher floors. The new vehicles might arrive in six months,” said a fire official.