Grote LED Lighting Makes Existing Fire Rescue Vehicles NFPA 1901 Complaint, Quickly Boosts Crew Safety and Performance

New LED WhiteLight Lamps Deliver Twice the Light of Incandescents, Use About One Quarter of the Power

Grote Industries announces the introduction of a purpose-built LED lighting solution that can bring fire rescue vehicles into NFPA 1901 lighting compliance quickly and efficiently.

Guidelines to support fire fighters during response and on-scene activity are reflected in the NFPA 1901: Standard for Automotive Fire Apparatus, 2009 edition and pertain to apparatus ordered on or after Jan. 1, 2009. Grote’s new LED lighting solution can be specified on any new vehicle, but offers departments the opportunity to bring their existing vehicles into compliance swiftly and conveniently.

“We’re helping departments meet the standard with easy-to-install, locally mounted lighting that is much more practical than existing solutions such as pole-mounted scene lighting,” Scott Robertson, product manager of LED WhiteLight for Grote Industries said. “Pole-mounted lighting is significantly more costly to purchase and maintain and the excessive power draw associated with these high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps often means that firefighters have to turn off other vehicle lighting or electronic equipment to compensate.”

Robertson explained that if one examined incandescent and LED lighting by comparing two identical vehicles with 14 lamps each, the incandescent-equipped vehicle would need to devote over 30 amps to its electrical overhead alone. Conversely, an LED-equipped vehicle would need only about 8.4 amps to power its lighting, leaving it with plenty of power to run the vehicle’s other mission-critical equipment. Robertson also pointed out that the LED-equipped vehicle would have the added advantage of having twice as much usable light at its disposal.

Unlike incandescent and HID lamps, Grote LED WhiteLight lamps are rated for tens of thousands of hours of service life and are virtually impervious to the types of shock and vibration that would disable conventional lighting equipment. The lamps resist water spray and are listed for wet location usage.

Grote has recently produced an NFPA 1901 compliance catalog to help fire department decision makers learn how its LED WhiteLight lamps address the standard. The catalog cites specific language from the NFPA 1901 guidelines and features lamp specification and easy-to-understand graphics that depict the called-for illumination. The catalog covers lighting for specific areas of fire rescue vehicles including the hose bed, work surfaces, steps and walkways, interior spaces, compartments and panels. Lighting options for the ground surrounding a vehicle and scene lighting are also included in the catalog.

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