A hosepack is a
backpack containing
fire hose in a preconfigured arrangement, sometimes completely made from fire hose without a bag, which is used to quickly facilitate the construction of a
hose lay
:''A hose lay or hose load is a preconfigured arrangement of fire hose that facilitates deployment under high-stress, high-danger situations.''
A Mattydale lay, also called "cross-lay", "speedlay", and "transverse lay", is a method of storing hos ...
. In the context of wildland fire fighting, hosepacks are widely used in areas where
fire trucks
A fire engine (also known in some places as a fire truck or fire lorry) is a road vehicle (usually a truck) that functions as a firefighting apparatus. The primary purposes of a fire engine include transporting firefighters and water to an ...
are unable to access.
Wildland hosepacks include; the Gansner pack, Travis pack,
Lake George pack
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...
and Gnass pack. These types of hose packs are considered progressive hose packs. When deployed they always have laterals off the trunk line that allow water to be used at any point in the progression of the hose lay.
In
structure fire fighting the main type of hose pack is the high-rise pack. It is used in conjunction with
standpipes in
high rise building
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdictio ...
s to quickly deploy hose on multistory buildings.
Various devices, commonly referred to as
fire hose vacuums or "hose vacs", are becoming more prevalent that make packing hose easier as well as facilitating the removal of air, which makes the packs smaller and easier to deploy.
References
{{Firefighting
Firefighting equipment