Buying a fire truck or apparatus is a big decision, and there are a lot of manufacturers out there to choose from. In an industry where there are numerous standards that must be met, you might ask, “Why does the manufacturer even matter?” If everyone must meet certain criteria, aren’t all trucks the same? Pierce manufactures trucks that focus on your department’s safety, which makes them different than the rest.
Unlike KME Fire trucks, Pierce manufactures units that come with superior safety features by default; they can be removed or customized if necessary. Pierce units focus on safety for those who are riding on them by supplying side-roll protection, frontal air bags, an independent front suspension, and many other features that aren’t considered “standard,” but are important to Pierce. When you buy a Pierce apparatus, you can rest assured that your firefighters will be as safe as possible; it’s the Pierce difference.
Pierce and KME Fire units are built in three different components: cab/chassis, pumphouse, and body. That’s where the similarities end; with Pierce, the pumphouse and body modules are built in whole, encapsulated segments, so one piece can be removed entirely and easily. With KME Fire, that is true of the body, but KME Fire mounts their pump directly to the frame and then builds a framework around the pump to mount the “pumphouse options.” If something happens to your KME Fire apparatus, it has to be taken apart piece by piece, causing a lot of downtime and more work than necessary.
Another major difference between KME Fire and Pierce is that Pierce manufacturers their aerials in-house; the same cannot be said for KME – their aerials are manufactured by another manufacturer and sold to KME. KME Fire also has less chassis to choose from, narrowing down your options when it comes to what works best for your department. Pierce offers units on five commercial and seven custom chassis, including Velocity® and ARROW XT™ as opposed to KME’s seven total chassis.
The Pierce difference is a unit that you can be sure is safe, and one that you can take pride in. At FSS, we pride ourselves on selling a product that is unique and safe, and we’re happy to help you find the apparatus that is best for your department.
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