The Sydney Central Business District is just about the last place you would consider when thinking trucks.
But if you take a walk down Castlereagh Street to the Fire Rescue New South Wales (FRNSW) City of Sydney 001 Fire Station, you will find a highly specialised twin-steer Scania P420 providing a critical role in fire and emergency response within the city area.
Commissioned in 2009, the Scania is fitted out with a Bronto Skylift Ladder Platform – also known as an aerial appliance.
With the four-stage boom fully extended, the unit extends 44 metres off the ground, allowing for access to high-rise buildings for rescue along with the provision of water for firefighting operations.
Firefighters at FR001, Brenton Paterson and Ron Rout are tasked with crewing the Scania across a 24-hour shift, with the role of operating the ‘Bronto’ safely and effectively reliant on strong teamwork and communication with each other and fellow firefighters.
“Part truck driver, part firefighter and part crane operator is the best way to describe the role,” Brenton said.
“We have a HR licence for driving the truck, along with high-risk work licences to operate the appliance and working at heights. It was a matter of learning the crane side of things and then the fire and rescue side of it, so it took a while to get my head around it all,” he continued.
The Bronto is not always paged to every fire call with other appliances responding first, but when the call comes through the two-man crew swing into action, with the ‘driver’ and ‘offsider’ each having defined roles in preparing to put the unit to work.
“The driver gets to the incident and sets up to deploy the ladder. The offsider gets up in the ‘cage’ dressed, harnessed in ready to go while the driver then works on getting water to the truck,” Brenton explained.
From arrival to full deployment the process of stabilising the truck via the outriggers and deploying the platform takes around three minutes with the driver then positioned in the ‘pulpit’ on the back of the truck and the firefighter working above.
With the monitor (water jet fed through the hose) having a maximum output of 3800 litres/minute and other factors such as obstacles at height, correct placement of the vehicle is one of the main considerations for the crew.
“Because of the weight of it as well, it’s essentially a crane so we need to make sure the ground underneath is stable. We have four hose lines in so to run water 44 metres up it’s a lot of weight.
“When we are running water through it we will have another pumper allocated to us and their job is to just supply water through to us.”
Along with firefighting, rescue makes up a large part of the Bronto’s work load with the cage fitted with a stretcher and thermal imaging cameras.
“It’s very versatile and it is used for a lot of rescue work – with people off balconies and animals out of trees,” Brenton said.
“It’s not a matter of getting water up and through it all the time, for example where vision could be restricted we can send it up there without anyone in it and get a look with the camera and check the thermal imagery for hotspots and feed that information back.”
Now 15 years old, the Scania is nearing the end of its working life with a larger ladder earmarked to replace the current unit.
Based in Finland, Bronto Skylift engineer, manufacture and fit the platforms, with final fit out and then commissioning through local company Alexander Perrie working with FRNSW.
“They are a big beast, so it takes some time to get right,” said Andrew Simmonds, FRNSW fleet project manager.
“A normal pumper is usually a 3-6 month build but with Aerials it’s a two-year build process – orders out of Europe are fitted onto the truck chassis and then sent to Alexander Perrie, so the orders placed this year will see units put into service in 2026.
“Replacement cost is around $2.4 million – they are not a cheap appliance but it’s something we need for our firefighters to have that capability and to be able to service the community.”
Both Brenton and Ron reckon the Scania is well-appointed and set up to tackle the urban environment and has proven its ability to get the job done and will continue to do before being put into retirement.
“It does get worked hard in the traffic through the city – it’s generally three minutes to a job but it might be working for 3-4 hours,” said Ron.
“Getting to a job by taking the shortest route isn’t always the quickest but that’s the nature of the city so we have to be prepared for it. This is one of the best to drive around the city when compared to some of the other trucks – it’s a good bit of kit.”