The next time you see a car on fire off to the side of the road, picture a motorcycle or two hurtling towards the chaos to save the day instead of your typical gargantuan firetruck. That’s the goal of a test pilot program using some tweaked BMW motorcycles anyway. Weighing at £30,000 (that’s $46,000 USD to those living in the land of red, white, and blue), the bikes are far from cheap. Though in their defense, brand new firetrucks are well north of the six figure mark. So on the surface, it seems like a deal.
But how useful would a bike be in a fire? The fires these road warriors will conquer are only that of small car fires and other “brush fires” that aren’t an immediate danger to surrounding individuals or buildings, as obviously, a building would need a ton of firepower — more-so than a simple bike can provide. But their use seems to be taking off, with countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Turkey all employing at least a couple fire bikes of their own.
Speaking of fire power, the BMW-built bikes feature (2) 25-liter cannisters filled with water and foam, good for a solid three minutes of use. According to BMW however, the bikes are capable of putting out your standard car fire in as little as 20 seconds, so the seemingly small firefighting capacity isn’t actually that bad. Furthermore, specially trained drivers donned in fire resistant suits and helmets are the only ones allowed to pilot the two-wheeled machines.
It’s easy to understand that smaller fires are much more prevalent than say a five alarm gigantor fire that would require a dozen or more fire engines from multiple stations. With that said, these bikes could be an awesome tool for fire stations around the country. Hopefully the testing at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service goes well and they decide to pick a few up. You never know, the next time you turn and look, you could be seeing one hurtling towards a fire yourself.
Telegraph
