Pro-Tip: Handling Steep Slopes & Grades 🚒🏔️Operating a Aerial on a slope isn’t just about leveling the jacks—it’s about managing weight shift and your braking system.
The Breakdown: ✅ Under 5°: You’re in the green. The truck’s systems handle the heavy lifting for normal operations. ⚠️ Past 5°: Watch for the yellow symbol! The truck is working harder, especially the motor’s braking system when stopping heavy loads downhill. 📉 The 10° Rule: If you’re pushed to a 10° side-hill slope, drop 250 lbs off your basket capacity. Stick to a 750 lb max for safe rescues and full recovery. Pro Strategy: Try to work off the lower half of the angle or off the front/back. Working over the side on a steep grade puts the most stress on your equipment. Know your limits, protect the motor, and stay within safe operating procedures!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:
Um, so now we got slop and grade. So one of the things that you notice, I said you’re okay within five degrees. Okay. So I’m a little bit tilted right now ’cause I was jacking with it a minute ago. Fine. Okay. Five degrees fine. Past five degrees, depending on if it’s it’s slope or grade. Right there on that slope symbol. I’m gonna get a little yellow, just like that little symbol right there. It’s a little smaller over the top when I’m over that 5%. Now at that point, the truck is taking care of totally everything. No matter what you do, you’re within good operating procedures. Once you get outside of that five, there’s a couple. Nuances to it. If I’m tilted this way, five way past it, I’m fine. I’m okay. Heck, we set up, I was in LA County last week, okay? We set their TDA up on a 14 degree slope down there. Thing is jacked. So this way I’m fine. This way I am fine. Now, the only thing that I’m thinking about is what side of that angle am I working on? I like to work on the lower half of that. Because if you’re out here over the side, now that braking system that’s in that motor has to work really hard. Every time I stop, ’cause I got all this weight trying to go downhill, if I’m working down off the back, it’s already down there. It really doesn’t care if I’m working off the front going this way. It really doesn’t care. So it’s just things to think about when I’m doing stuff like that is how that weight shift when I’m off to the side don’t go any more than 10. That’s pretty much your max. It’s gonna be tough to get that here. You’re actually gonna be side hill anyhow, and then really push it. So in general, you’re gonna be about five, six degrees when you really push that extra to get that below grade. Otherwise you just recovered, uh, within five for normal operations. Uh, getting that below grade is kind of where you’re really gonna see that thing. If you are working off the side and you’re getting into that 10, I’d take about 250 pounds off your basket load. Okay, so bring her down to about seven 50 of what you’re gonna do, full recovery, um, on any type of rescues or anything like that.
* The training views expressed in this video are those of the training instructors, and not Fire Spotlight. The actions in this video are inherently dangerous and could result in death; should the viewers choose to adopt any views expressed in this video, he/she is doing so at his/her own risk. Fire Spotlight encourages viewers to review his/her department’s Standard Operating Procedures when adopting any new training views.* The training views expressed in this video are those of the training instructors, and not Fire Spotlight. The actions in this video are inherently dangerous and could result in death; should the viewers choose to adopt any views expressed in this video, he/she is doing so at his/her own risk. Fire Spotlight encourages viewers to review his/her department’s Standard Operating Procedures when adopting any new training views.