I went out to the Christchurch International Airport today, and got to see the fire engines... There are about 5 big engines down there. Got to go for a ride on one of the runways in the fancy new engine - $1.2m purchase price, around $300k commissioning cost. It carries around 10k litres of water. The main water cannon can shoot water up to 70 metres. VERY impressive. I got to control the cannons - that was quite cool. They were surprisingly responsive. There are a couple of joysticks - one for the nose mounted cannon, and one for the top mounted one. Very good.
The new truck has around 680hp, and weighs 33 tonnes. It has quite good acceleration given its weight.
Big thanks to Richard and his father for letting me go out there.
Pictures on flickr.