Small & Nimble

San Diego employs ASAP’s all-terrain rescue/EMS vehicle during U.S. Open golf championship

Almost 2 years ago, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) began planning for the U.S. Golf Association’s (USGA) U.S. Open Championship to be held at the city’s Torrey Pines Golf Course. The first step: setting up a unified command structure among the SDFD, police department, USGA and Torrey Pines staff, and bringing everyone together to discuss fire protection, EMS and safety in general.

The closest fire station is 4 miles from the golf course, so the department needed to have some type of vehicle on hand to meet the event’s emergency-response needs. SDFD captain Tim Wilson, a coordinating officer for the event, was tasked with finding a small, agile vehicle that could move fast, get into small spaces, be easy to operate and deliver a firefighting punch before back-up arrived.

Captain Wilson saw an ad in a fire service publication about just such a vehicle: the Alternative Support Apparatus (ASAP), a fully enclosed, all-terrain rescue/EMS vehicle. “I also attended one of the fire service shows in San Diego in the beginning of the year,” he says. “I spoke to the manufacturer, and they agreed to have it at the event in June.”

The vehicle is built on Polaris’ 6 x 6 Ranger chassis. “The best thing about this small unit is that it could be inconspicuous and move around the tremendous crowds we were expecting, without causing a commotion,” Wilson says. “We had looked at other types of vehicles for use, but they weren’t street legal.”

Mark Natoli, owner of ASAP, donated the vehicle to the SDFD. The department took delivery of the unit, and reps from ASAP provided SDFD personnel with training 2 days before the event.

The vehicle was kept in one location and manned by fire personnel. It was equipped with two SCBA, a shovel, an axe, a Halligan, bolt cutters, one water and one dry-chemical extinguisher, an AED and a BLS bag. The vehicle carried 150 feet of 1 ½" preconnected hose and a 200' booster reel.

According to Captain Bill Wehrang, who staffed the vehicle along with Joe Diko and Frank DeClerq, “The vehicle was never used at an actual fire, thankfully. We did use it to wet down some roads to keep the dust down. In addition to this vehicle, we had five EMS bike teams and five EMS Gold Carts located in strategic locations all over the course.”

The agile vehicle seemed to work well for the SDFD and its special fire protection application. If your department will be involved in a special event—or even if your response district includes a rural area, park or tight space where a conventional type of fire apparatus could not be used—you might want to take a look at this neat little powerhouse. It holds a lot of equipment that you could configure to meet your needs.

Bob Vaccaro has more than 30 years of fire-service experience. He is a former chief of the Deer Park (N.Y.) Fire Department. Vaccaro has also worked for the Insurance Services Office, The New York Fire Patrol and several major commercial insurance companies as a senior loss-control consultant.