DG53 FWE This is one of a large number of Incident …

DG53 FWE This is one of a large number of Incident Response Units that the Government has purchased to respond to a terrorist attack in England and Wales. This one is fleet number ‘IRU 010’. These MAN trucks have been converted by Marshall Special Vehicles to carry a wide range of equipment useful for contamination and chemical attack situations among others.



The rear view. Notice the red and yellow battenburg livery and material sides. These slide back to reveal palettes of equipment stored inside. There are no marks to identify the fire brigade county that the vehicle is being used in (and hence they have a non-specific livery). This is because after training nationwide, these vehicles will be collected in, stored and deployed to whichever county needs them in an emergency.



To load and unload the palettes of equipment, this Moffett Mounty fork lift truck is attached to the rear. It is fitted with its own blue flashing light and can be used to move other objects at incident scenes. Scotland has three similar-looking Scania appliances for its terrorist response.



Here are the vehicles in action. The Moffet Mounty fork-lift is unloading two of the containers of equipment from the side of the MAN. Notice how the fork-lift has a blue flashing light, and can lift two containers at a time. The sides of the fire appliance are accessed by pulling back the curtain sides.



The rear view. The rear looks very different without the fork-lift in place. Look how the entire roof of the appliance has lifted by about half a metre to facilitate access to the containers. Each container is labeled (e.g. offside 3 upper) so that every appliance around the country has the same equipment stored in the same place.