LA’s firefighter robot, can go where humans can’t
LOS ANGELES >> The Los Angeles Fire Department introduced its newest firefighter Tuesday, a chunky, low- slung little gadget on wheels that despite its humble appearance can blast out 2,500 gallons of water a minute, go where it’s not safe for humans to tread and, in a pinch, even rescue a horse.
The bright yellow machine, which evokes some images of a “Star Wars” droid but without the beeps and burps, is nicknamed RS3. That’s short for Robot Solution 3.
“The Los Angeles Fire Department is the first in our country to acquire this amazing piece of new equipment,” Chief Ralph Terrazas told onlookers before before turning RS3 loose in a sprawling parking lot adjacent to the depa r tment ’ s dow nt ow n training center.
The chief said he became aware of the value of firefighting robots when he saw one nicknamed Colossus on the news last year as it rumbled into the bowels of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral to take up the fight after human firefighters had to flee the building as the roof threatened to collapse. Colossus was widely credited with helping save both lives and the building.
“It got me thinking about the large fires we have here in Los Angeles. We had one of those fires early this morning in downtown,” the chief said of a blaze that torched two downtown businesses before 130 firefighters, including one who suffered minor injuries, extinguished it.
A similar one last month destroyed a nearly finished apartment building for homeless and low-income people as it sent a scaffolding crashing down onto an adjacent building.
“Those fires sometimes cause us to back out our firefighters because we’re concerned about the potential for a building collapse,” Terrazas said, adding firefighters must then resort to fighting the blaze from the outside, using hook- andladder trucks.
“This is effective but it takes a long time and uses much more water than we normally have to if we had interior attack.”