Tupelo Fire Equipment is more than a company that just "wants to make money" from Emergency Services, we want to make sure you are as informed as possible. We want to help you make the best decisions for the needs of your staff. This page is solely for information purposes and it not intended to "sell" one product or brand over the other. Please see below for some of our more commonly asked questions on equipment.

Fireground Knowledge

How do you estimate flow required by room size?

An easy-to-use and easy-to-remember formula from the National Fire Academy can be used to estimate fire flow in structural fire attack. This formula is L x W (of the room) / 3 (length times width, divided by 3). Using this formula will five you the needed water flow in gallons per minute (gpm) to darken the fire in 10 - 30 seconds, when applied properly. It can also be adjusted for percent of involvement and if necessary, at 25% for each exposure.

Example - 15' x 20' room, fully involved, no exposures = 15 x 20 = 300 sq feet, divided by 3 = 100 gpm.

Example - 15' x 20' room, half involved, no exposures - 15 x 20 = 300 sq feet, divided by 3 = 100 gpm x 50% = 50 gpm

Example - 24 x 24, fully involved, exposure - 25 x 25 (this isn't exact, so it's ok to round up to easier numbers) / 3 = prrox 200 gpm. Add 50 gpm (25% of the flow rate) for the exposure = 250 gpm

Is there any truth to the claim that a rural department using tanker shuttle should conserve it's water as opposed to a department that has hydrants.

No. Applying a small amount of water will not put out the fire, and you will probably be shuttling water until the fire building burns down to a point where your application rate is proper for the fire, which is now small, because you have burnt up all the fuel. Properly applying a high flow early on (at or above the critical application rate) will darken the fire immediately, property will be saved, and overall water usage will be less, comparted with the previous, low flow senario.

If we pump a 2" line equipped with a nozzle flowing at 280 psi, we can place an effective stream on the interior celing of a 2 story building. My question is why can our neighboring departments be progressive enough to accept this practice?

We have no idea. Over the past 20 years, we have seen all of our equipment improve, stronger pumps, bigger engines, vastly improved hose and nozzles, large sizes of hose that are still hand held (2" is an example) and yet we have seen pump pressures and nozzle pressures go lower and lower. We scream out loud "WHY?" Fire Departments pay huge sums of money to get all of this equipment and them are afraid to use it to it's capability to reduce the stress on the firefighters. Somewhere the idea got started that lower pump pressures somehow make it easier on the hose crew. We think that we should be using the high powered pumpers to develop higher pressures so that more water can be moved thru smaller, more maneuverable hose lines. The whole idea of applying large volumes FAST is to get the fire our and get the crews our of harms way as fast as possible.

My Fire Department recently switched to using 1 3/4" preconnect hose lines flowing up to 175 gpm. However, I have received several complaints comcering manouverability of the hose on interior attack. Has any other departments experienced this problem? Prior to the 1 3/4" lines, 1 1/2" lines were in use in the department.

By changing to 1 3/4" hose and increasing your flow, you have greatly increased you fire attack capabilities. We hear that comment quite often about the hose being a little less flexible, however, if the pump pressure is lowered to make the hose more manageable, the flow is also reduced, and you may not be using the full fire fighting power you gained by switching to the larger hose. Also, depending on the brand and type of hose you are using (all hose is NOT created equal), operating at lower pump pressures and lower flows may increase the chances of kinking the hose, which can severly decrease the flow and put firefighters at greater risk. Keep your flows up and take advantage of the higher flow rates you 1 3/4" is capable of.