Agree... It took a local small city fire department many years to replace a Tower Truck that was built in 1983.
Not all small city, county, and township's have the budgets for new equipment. I bet there a Truck from the 60s running at some department.
Oh, even a few older than that out there.... I remeber a local department near Johnstown, PA that was running, and I believe still is running an old truck from the 50's as their 2nd engine...
As for policies and Special agencies, nationally you do have the USAR Task Forces from all states.. In Ohio, there is a statewide response plan developed post 9/11 by the OFCA, or Ohio Fire Chiefs Association which lays out mutual aid throughout the state and even into local states for major emergencies.It's been very well recieved, and is being adopted by several other states. Also, The office of the state fire marshall along with the fire chiefs associatio, and state fire school have created a few specialized task forces. This includes a Water Rescue Team and USAR team, both also have a set of equipment trailers. The state organizations also have, and provide mobile training equipment for USAR, hazmat, flash over training, etc. for local departments and task forces throughout the state. There are also regional response groups like the COST--Central Ohio Strike Team, which is a USAR and collapse rescue team made up members from central ohio fire departments (their trucks were provided by the OFCA. For Hazmat operations all departments are part of NASTY (I don't remember the acronym definition), is the regional hazmat group. Each depatment possess their own hazmat trucks, but a large disasters will respond as mutual aid, and fufill certain roles such as decon and contaiment.
In Pennsylvania, I have seen some places where the county runs the hazmat equipment. These function like the COST team, firefighters from all over use equipment kept at a seperate station.( In the case of Erie Co. the airport). But, I know that the area around Pittsburgh has SHARP which functions along the same lines as NASTY, and has several departments providing pieces of specialized apparataus. In the case of Cambria County, the Hazmat team started when a better off company purchased the piece of equipment, the same also started with the USAR team. Currently the USAR team is still run by the one department, and is part of a multi-county technical recue team. The hazmat truck has been taken over by the county so staffing is provided by many departments and the truck is kept outside of any particular station. Also, the local paid department has purchased a truck they staff and respond as part of the county hazmat team, and other department have purchased equipment trailers, etc. for the team that are station at their indvidual departments. Unlike in SHARP or NASTY, most vehicles are not full hazmat trucks.
Also most departments tend to keep some basic hazmat supplies on each truck, normally just some absorbent materials.
The multi-department, county specialist teams, tend to keep their equipment outside of fire departments because of the politics that can occur.....especially in volunteer ares.
Also,as far as equipment on trucks it varies from department to department. Some run with heavy rescues carrying the extrication equipment, and some run with engine rescues....
As far as other specialized equipment it just depends around here there are no command posts, in PA everyone had a specialized bus or truck for it. Some departments will run HI-X foam trucks, collapse recue trucks, telesquirts, light trucks, air trucks, and heavy duty off road brush trucks. It just depends on what equipment the department has and what the department needs to have for their area.
If you want some good examples, I can post some links to western PA fire Departments, it really show cases the variety and customization you see in U.S. fire fighting....anyways didn't mean to ramble on, I hope this helps you.
My statements reflect my personal thoughts and opinions, and do not reflect those of any agencies I'm affiliated with.
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