Diesel emissions, regeneration and maintenance shouldn’t be as scary as some firefighters believe.
Ever since the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started cracking down on black soot spouting diesel engines about five years ago, firefighters flinch at new regulations and have been trying to push them back.
However, compliance rather than resistance is probably the better path to take.
So, said two presenters at the 28th annual Fire Department Safety Officers Association apparatus symposium in a presentation titled “Diesel Emissions Maintenance & Troubleshooting.”
The presenters were Wes Chestnut, Spartan Motors’ manager of product safety and compliance and Chris Crowel, the emergency vehicle market leader for Cummins.
Crowel told attendees to the presentation that diesel engine regeneration cycles are no different than self-cleaning ovens and should be no more scary than that.
“It’s really no different than that,” Crowel said. “It’s just like cleaning your oven.”
There are three types of regeneration, Crowel said, noting that the first kind happens automatically as the diesel engines simply run at high temperatures at high speed to burn all the soot. The second is active regeneration where a little fuel is put into the exhaust system to increase the temperature and the last is the manual, stationary regeneration.