Woodbury Volunteer Fire Department in Hill County, Texas has just completed a full lighting install on a brand-new Polaris Ranger UTV. The unit is scheduled to enter service at the end of this month and will be used primarily for wildfire response and search-and-rescue operations.
For a multi-role UTV that needs to be both highly visible and practical in the field, the department selected a complete FireTech Redline package:
- (6) Surge Mini (Red/Blue/White), RL-SRG-MIN-RBW
- (2) Surge Mini (Red/Blue/Amber), RL-SRG-MIN-RBA
- (2) Dawn Combo Scene & Warning Light (Red), RL-DWN-R
- (2) Work Light, FT-WL-2000-FT-B
Fire Chief Thomas Merryman explained the decision and the results:
“We chose the FireTech Redline series of warning lights for this UTV build as we wanted to give them a try, and we found the ease of programming, install and overall features to be incredibly compelling. With the use of the Commander programmer it took only a matter of minutes to configure all the light heads going on the rig and we were able to not only get great high-output warning patterns but also add a cruise mode for special events plus a solid white glow mode that increases safety when loading and unloading from the trailer without being overpowering.
The Dawn fixtures specifically are a great addition to this build for us as they give us elevated warning capability on the rear of the cab as well as serving as our load lights since they have an angled work light that illuminates our pump manifold and stokes basket platform. The built-in ‘Cruise Override’ feature is an awesome attention to detail as it means when we have those load lights active, the warning portion of the lights will go to solid burning and not overwhelm our crews working off the rear of the UTV.
Overall our first experience with Redline was really impressive and I feel that we got great function/flexibility out of a very affordable setup. We’re looking to rework one of our brush trucks after this fire season and our members are already discussing making that unit a Redline spec’ed truck as well.”
The combination of rapid programming, high-output warning patterns, useful work-light modes, and thoughtful features like Cruise Override gave Woodbury VFD exactly the flexibility they needed on a compact platform. The department’s positive first experience has already sparked internal conversation about bringing the same Redline approach to a brush truck later this year.
A clean, capable lighting solution that delivers both strong warning presence and practical scene lighting, precisely what a modern wildfire and SAR UTV demands.
