What Fire Trucks Have In Common With RVs

Look in a kid’s toy box and somewhere in there you’ll find a fire truck or a fire hat but probably not an RV. Kids love fire trucks because they make noise, are big and red, have flashing lights and shoot huge streams of water on fires. RVs on the other hand are not so exciting. Since the Professor of RVing is a personal friend of Sparky the Fire Dog, I got a tour of one of these cool machines. As I was checking out this fire truck I began to notice that it had a few things in common with an RV. First of all it carries ladders and almost every RV I see has a ladder strapped on it somewhere. The next thing I noticed is that these things are big and RVs can also be big. They have huge holding tanks and so do RVs. They also have pumps and can shoot huge amounts of water. While RVs can’t do that, they do have smaller water pumps that dribble water. OK, I know it’s a stretch but the thing that caught my eye was the enormous sky lift on this truck . It goes up about 65 feet and allows firemen to hose down a house from altitude. In order to safely do this they need to be close to level. This truck has huge leveling and stabilizing arms that allow the truck to safely operate the sky lift. So what do if find on the back of this fire truck to help them do this job? As I zoom in a little closer check out the RV product that the fire department depends on to save lives and property. That’s right, you’re looking at an RV level. I installed one of these on my 5th wheel so I could level it when I pulled into a camp site. They aren’t a precision instrument by any means, but they’ll quickly get you close to level so you can move on to other things like fighting a fire or setting up camp. Keeping it on the level - Jim Twamley, Professor of RVing