The National Fire Protection Association(NFPA) has long been known to mandate innovation and design requirements. In proper fashion they’ve just passed

the 2017 revision of NFPA 1901, which on the surface might seem pretty mundane. NFPA 1901 is kind of a boring standard mostly written to provide guidance to apparatus manufacturers, although this revision gives us something a little different and WE ALL SHOULD BE PAYING ATTENTION. The 2017 revision to NFPA 1901 mandates that all Class A Pumpers be Quints. Let that sink in for a moment. An all quint fire service nationwide? What’s really going on here?

According to an American LaFrance spokesperson, the idea behind this drastic change is to standardize the nation into utilizing one firefighting platform nationwide in order to further the goals of the National Incident Management System’s (NIMS) requirement for interoperability. We’ve long imagined a fire service where we knew exactly what was showing up for mutual aid. Now every apparatus can arrive on scene as an engine or a ladder or both leaving the initial size-up and tactics up to the officer. Furthermore any and all mutual aid requests will no longer be a mystery. All apparatus will be the same so there is less guessing involved.

This is not a new concept Great Britain, Europe, Japan, Philippines and many other countries run a standardized apparatus fire service. If you really think about it the U.S. is just catching up.

The long debated topic within the NFPA wasn’t an easy decision to digest for fire apparatus manufacturers who strongly opposed the measure due to the end of the custom chassis market and possible loss in profits until they realized Quints could start at $750,000 thus doubling the price of current class A pumpers.

Stay tuned for more information on the 2017 revision. The date currently set for nationwide compliance is 2025 giving departments a mere 9 years to gather the funding necessary.

This article is satire. We sure hope you’re not emailing the NFPA 1971 committee chairman and complaining.