New Equipment Will Help Fight Large Industrial Fires

The Imperial Sugar refinery explosion is one of the biggest fires in recent Savannah history. It took several days -- and specialized equipment brought in from Texas to extinguish the flames.  Now, our local fire departments have the same kind of equipment at their disposal. Savannah Fire Battalion Chief Curtis Wallace says, “This was like equipment that was used there - on that particular response the fire department did respond for the life safety and fire suppression - but as we went into multiple time periods - like equipment from this was deployed from Texas to savannah to put that fire out.”

The new equipment is capable of pumping water straight out of the Savannah River or a retention pond onto flames...enabling firefighters to better handle the largest of industrial fires possible in the area says Chief Wallace, “This is a new capability for us - up until now our larger deck gun or our largest capability was 2500 gallons per minute.”  Nothing compared to the 6-thousand gallon per minute capability of one of the new cannons.  Savannah and Garden City have spent the past three days training to use the new machines.  Learning to use the equipment one part of the training...learning to work hand in hand with each other just as important says Garden City Fire Chief James Crosby, “Working with each other side by - everybody gets to know each other and how it all works...that's one good thing about here in Savannah - everybody - each fire department here works very close to each other, it's not like some states where they don't even talk to their neighbor fire department - we all work good cause most everybody lives next door to each other.”  An important partnership in times of crisis.

The new equipment cost more than a million dollars.  It was obtained through a Department of Homeland Security port security grant awarded to the Savannah and Garden City Fire Departments in cooperation with some industry partners.