Fire hose
On occasions, fire hoses have been used for crowd control (see also water cannon), including by Bull Connor in the Birmingham campaign against protesters during the Civil Rights Movement in 1963.
Original hand pumpers discharged their water through a small pipe or monitor attached to the top of the pump tub.
[3] It was not until the late 1860s that hoses became widely available to convey water more easily from the hand pumps, and later steam pumpers, to the fire.
[6] Even with the limitations of pressure, the attachment of the hose to the gooseneck nozzle allowed closer approaches and more accurate water application.
Van der Heyden was also credited with an early version of a suction hose using wire to keep it rigid.
[4] Modern fire hoses use a variety of natural and synthetic fabrics and elastomers in their construction.
These materials allow the hoses to be stored wet without rotting and to resist the damaging effects of exposure to sunlight and chemicals.
Modern hoses are lighter weight than older designs, which has reduced the physical strain on firefighters.
It should have sufficient strength to withstand the pressure of external air when a vacuum has formed inside.
This embedding is arranged so that it provides a full waterway and a relatively smooth internal surface.
Non-percolating hose consists of a reinforced jacket made from polyester or nylon yarns.
[15] Coatings and liners use synthetic rubbers, which provide varying degrees of resistance to chemicals, temperature, ozone, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, mold, mildew, and abrasion.
Here is a typical sequence of operations used to manufacture a double jacket, rubber-lined fire hose.
[17] The trend in fire hose construction over the last 20 years has been to use lighter, stronger, lower maintenance materials.
These hoses are expected to find applications in large-scale industrial firefighting, as well as in disaster relief efforts and military operations.
Lightweight, single-jacket construction, 3⁄4, 1, and 1+1⁄2 inch diameter hose lines are commonly used in wildfire suppression applications.
Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog, two municipalities on the Belgian-Dutch border, share a common international fire department.
The fire trucks have been equipped with adapters to allow them to work with both Storz and Guillemin connectors.
[18] In the United States, a growing number of departments use Storz couplers for large-diameter supply hose, or other quick-action couplings.
Because the usage is not standardized, mutual aid apparatus might have a compartment on their trucks dedicated to a multitude of hose adapters.
Time-consuming multiple connections or problems with male and female ends are avoided by such tactics.
In countries where Storz (or similar) connectors have been used for attack hoses for generations, firefighters drop a manifold at the border of the danger zone, which is connected to the apparatus by a single supply line.
As a result, the tiny item "hose coupler" has also influenced the looks and design of fire apparatus.
