Tank to Pump

Water Sources

Tanker Shuttle

A tanker shuttle is a rotation of water-hauling apparatus that carries water from a distant fill site to the fire, sustaining a supply where there are no hydrants. The shuttle's sustained flow depends on the cycle time and the number of tankers.

A schematic tanker-shuttle loop: a fill site on the left, a stream of tanker trucks cycling along an animated water loop to a scene drop tank on the right and back, above a supply bar whose fill shows the sustained fleet flow against a dashed gold demand marker, with cycle time, per-tanker flow, and line demand read out below.

Tanker shuttle · interactive

COMFORTABLE3000 gpm sustainedThe fleet sustains more than the line demands, with cushion to spare. A faster cycle or another truck buys headroom; a single tanker's load is never its supply — its supply is that load divided by the round trip.

  • Cycle time6 min
  • Per tanker500 gpm
  • Line demand500 gpm

Each tanker carries 3000 gal and spends a 2-minute dump and a 2-minute fill plus the drive each way. Sustained flow is that load divided by the full round trip — the same math the Tanker Shuttle calculator uses. A truck's capacity is not its supply; its supply is capacity divided by cycle time. These are training estimates; real cycles vary with roads and fill-site capacity — follow your SOPs.

Drag the one-way travel time and the number of tankers, and watch the sustained fleet flow rise or fall against the supply demand. A truck's load is not its supply — its supply is that load divided by the full round trip.

In rural operations, mobile water supply replaces a hydrant. Tankers cycle between a fill site and a dump site near the fire, dropping their loads into a portable tank the attack engine drafts from.

The sustained flow the shuttle can deliver is set by how much each tanker carries divided by how long its round trip takes — and by how many tankers are in rotation. Hitting a target flow is a logistics problem as much as a pump problem.

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See also