Study of the Condition of Forest Fire Fighting Vehicles

Abstract

The Forest Fire Fighting Vehicle (FFFV) is one of the most important pieces of equipment in direct firefighting; therefore, its maintenance is strategic to guarantee high levels of reliability. The history of interventions is essential to support the increase in the quality of maintenance, namely with regard to the specificity of each equipment, in its actual operating conditions. In the absence of previous information, it is important to resort to complementary tools that allow for overcoming this gap where usually the knowledge of maintenance held by professionals and users is structuring and very helpful. In this perspective, data were collected from several fire brigades. The analysis and decisions were possible using fuzzy logic, following the Mamdani model and the centroid method for the defuzzification phase. Subsequently, a Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) was carried out to identify which would be the most severe failures, the possible cause of each failure and the respective maintenance action. Through the results obtained, it was possible to identify a set of elements of the FFFV where maintenance should pay additional attention so that the vehicle guarantees the desired levels of reliability and propose a maintenance program with added value compared to what is currently practised.