On July 1st, 2025, my engine and support truck were dispatched to a vegetation fire in Reno Nevada. It was an IA dispatch, and we had to drive code 3 to the area of where the fire was reported. The problem is that our support truck does not have emergency lights because we have been told it is too expensive. Because of that we had to drive very close to the engine that has red emergency lights to the incident. During our 10-minute drive from the station to the fire we had multiple near misses from the local public because they would move out of the way for the engine but not the support truck. We ended up being in a wildland urban interface situation and needed to get to work but were concerned for our safety because people would not move out of our way, and in turn we were almost T-boned responding to the incident.
This is not the first time this has happened. Every time we go on assignment from our forest to out of forest, we find ourselves driving code 3 more often. It is unsafe to keep doing this with our support truck unless we get emergency lights on it. This is a safety risk to not only firefighters but also to the surrounding public. |
