Cybertruck Firetruck - Can it help in Aussie Fires?

[JBee]

For many years, Australia, as well as many other nations and states, have been struggling to fight fires with mobile ground assets. Most of the vehicles used are converted commercial trucks and pickups, that have limited off-road, or in particular poor sand driving ability in the bush. They also have quite limited functionality, with 10ton trucks only carrying 3tons of water, and the smaller LandCruiser based units with 500-700L onboard. The question is would a Cybertruck Firetruck be a viable, better performance solution, and if so why?

Cybertruck would be for firemen, volunteers and farmers. Farmers make up most of the volunteers here so outfitting them with a firefighting pickup module would be simple and make more sense as they could use their own farm CT for firefighting and could self dispatch from home. This would also significantly reduce the cost and improve capabilities overall.

CT benefits:

• Upgraded Biodefense mode HVAC for filtering smoke - This provides safety for crews and evacuees
• Stainless steel body is heat resistant - but would need thermal insulation to offer better protection from radiant heat
• Pass through bed storage could mean that a water tank could be mounted into the rear of the cab for better weight distribution - leaving much of the bed area clear for gear and still enough room for 3 crew if required
• 240V powered 10kW firefighting water pump can run off main battery - more than one could be used if required
• Full Vehicle irrigation system can be used, also protecting the wheels, without body corrosion issues
• ROPS should be fairly good and together with the SS body, and if the Amour glass holds up, would offer good penetration protection for users from falling branches, small trees etc
• CT could have a front mounted hose reel in the frunk - along with a "fireman summon mode", where the CT could follow a single operator on the hose
• A integrated automated water cannon shouldn't be too hard to fit in the bed
• A flamethrower for back burning too
• Ability to outrun 60MPH grass fires - (many trucks max out beforehand)
• Built in Starlink could potentially offer through fire comms as it's unlikely to be parked under a fire (fire severely impacts radio performance)
• Electric motors will continue to drive in oxygen deprived environments (like driving through a fire front - not a good idea normally)
• No fuel onboard for vehicle or firefighting gear
• Cybertrailer could be used as water tanker - electric propelled version would increase water capacity

CT potential drawbacks:

• Battery recharge times and locations - Although a mobile Megapack with 250kW chargers should offer similar performance to ICE firetrucks
• Battery temperatures - will they significantly degrade performance, or will they in fact be a safety risk in a fire situation?
• ??

Comments welcome as I'd like to develop the idea into a solution as there is bound to be another catastrophic fire season in the future.

 

[Not Sure]

 

[ThomasD]

The truck can't carry that much weight
fire brush truck - Google Search

 

[gaswalla]

Australia will be burnt down by the time Cybertruck comes to Oz

 

[SSedan]

Sounds like you need these.
Oshkosh Striker - Wikipedia
Will admit to bias, these are build local to me and I see them on test drives all the time bound for all sorts of places around the world.

More on topic, the CT offers basically nothing over more traditional trucks for this application. I appreciate your optimism but it is clouding your analysis.

 

[JBee]

@SSedan @ThomasD

Thanks for the links but none of those vehicles are available, or will become available in Australia. Let alone be affordable.
Just as an example a F150 can't be had for under USD$100k here. We pay $30-40k just for the driving side conversion.

The CT is coming to AU and doesn't need to be converted to comply or drive on the right side (the left!) of the road.

There are also weight savings and integration benefits if using a EV instead of a ICE that increases the amount of water they can carry.

As for any of the larger vehicles they wouldn't make it 50m down one of our bush tracks without getting stuck between trees, the overall width or corners in the track, or because of the poor condition of the track. Most of the fire 4x4 (7ton and up) trucks we have in our region can't even drive around the 20ft wide 10mile long firebreak around our farm, whereas a fully loaded Landcruiser will easy make it around, mostly in 2WD. Dual wheels you can also forget as they just pickup rocks between the wheels and render the vehicle useless without taking a wheel off first.

The best fire to fight is the one that is just started. That means the primary thing to contain fires is response time. That is why firetrucks have sirens and lights

The point is that having more firetrucks, spread-out over a larger region provides better response and capability, at a lower overall cost. So having a firefighting module for a CT type truck would easily outperform what we currently use, by at least a factor of two, and could potentially be done at a third of the cost.

Firefighting appliances are very poor ROI, so not much investment goes into them. Increasing their ROI means we'd have more of them, further increasing our firefighting capacity.

BTW this is a list of Aussie firefighting trucks for reference: https://www.dfes.wa.gov.au/emergenc...vernment_BFB_Firefighting_Appliances_2007.pdf

 

[SSedan]

The one I listed is a government purchase, and based on a military truck.

Far as your idea a CT would be lighter, I think your optimism is leading you to baseless ideas. What BEV is lighter than it's ICE equivalents? Motortrend In reference to the tug of war stunt was estimating the CT to be at least 1000lbs or 450kg heavier

 

[JBee]

@SSedan

EM said the CT weighed as much as a F150 in the reveal. I'm not as much concerned with its own weight as much as the CT ability to shift more weight and therefore water in comparison to what we have atm. A CT could easily carry 2x the water of our "ute" fire appliances.

I am not comparing it to F trucks that are not factory made for sale in Australia. The nearest thing is a Toyota 80 series landcruiser that is much less capable and smaller than a F truck for hauling water. The CT is much more capable and larger and will be available in Oz.

I'm not sure where my "optimism" is clouding my judgement. I haven't proposed anything otherworldly. Everything I mentioned is exisiting, to be realeased tech.

The Striker wouldn't be allowed to drive on public roads as it is to wide, let alone actually fit down a track. Its also not thought for off road as much as for off-pavement like for airport runway shoulders. Most of the fires are in National Parks with very poor access even on a good day.

 

[SSedan]

The Striker was not a realistic suggestion, more of a dream, they are off-road capable as they are made by a major military truck manufacturer. Probably drive over a lot of trees.

On the weight, what about an EV makes it lighter. My S P85 is very close in size to my wife's Chevy Impala but 800-1000lbs heavier an AWDS is heavier yet.
EM says a lot of things that don't pan out in the real world.