Smokey trucks series – size does matter
S
afety Boss Inc. is a full-service safety services company based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They have seen rapid expansion over the last few years opening offices throughout Alberta and British Columbia, including centres in Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Drayton Valley, Fort Saskatchewan, Whitecourt, Grande Prairie, Fort St. John, and Fort Nelson. The company and its owner Mike Miller became most famous by becoming the number one firefighting company in Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War. Safety Boss Inc. set the rapid pace that had to be matched by other companies in Kuwait, and as a result, the fires were out within nine months, instead of the many years that was initially given as the earliest possible date to put out the fires. The last fire to be put out was set up by Safety Boss Inc. to be doused by the push of a button by the Emir of Kuwait; the technology that allowed Safety Boss Inc. to take the lead was the Smokey fire truck. The Smokey Truck The oil-well control technology created by Safety Boss Inc. of Calgary is the
110 B.C. Oil & Gas Report • 2012
result of a world-renowned innovation that is deeply engrained in Alberta’s oil patch. Founded in Calgary in 1956, the company gained international acclaim during the 1991 Gulf War when, during Iraq’s retreat from Kuwait, they blew up 950 oil wells, of which 732 turned into raging infernos. Of the 600 oil wells capped, 180 were by Safety Boss. Despite being a small company compared to its American counterparts, this was the highest number of wells capped by any company operating in the Gulf region. As Mike Miller, CEO, said to his employees at the time, it was the “Stanley Cup” of oil-well firefighting. One important factor in their success was the Smokey fire truck. The Smokey truck was developed after the company found their existing trucks were inadequate during a blowout years before at Lodgepole, around 110 kilometres southwest of Edmonton. The sour-gas blowout burned 400 acres of forest and wasn’t capped for over two months. Development on the new Smokey series started in 1983. The new Smokey series featured a number of advantages. They were the
first oilfield trucks capable of shooting sustained, high-capacity streams of water or foam. A new multi-tank suction manifold system, high volume discharge hose layouts, and water cannons were much more efficient than systems other companies were using. The superiority of the Smokey truck was reflected in its cost—$500,000, more than triple what other trucks cost. Safety Boss can fully deploy its system within an hour of arriving at a fire. Other companies, often using explosives to put out fires, could take up to a day to set up. Endurance was another important factor. For this, Safety Boss relied on equipment supplied by trusted truck and pump companies. The equipment proved incredibly reliable. In Kuwait, three Smokey units pumped out 40 million gallons of water without breaking down. While Safety Boss has designed the systems on the Smokey units, they have been built by Superior Emergency Vehicles, located in Red Deer. The two companies have collaborated to make the best possible vehicles for this kind of work, and have recently come out with the Smokey XI and XII models. S