VPC · Armée de l’Air

French air bases run their own fire service — the pompiers de l'air, organised as Escadrons de Sécurité Incendie et de Sauvetage — and the VPC is the vehicle their incident commander works out of. It is not an appliance: it carries no pump and no water, only the means to run an incident.

The type entered service across the air bases in 2013. The base vehicle is a Land Rover Defender 130 light all-wheel-drive chassis, with a two-seat cab and an elevated body cell mounted on a false frame; the bodywork is by Essonne Sécurité, an armoured-vehicle specialist in the Côtes-d'Armor. In its full designation it is the VPC-SN, Véhicule Poste de Commandement / Sécurité Nucléaire, and the second half of that name explains much of the equipment: detection and measurement instruments, dosimetry, explosimeters and sampling gear, with approach suits and self-contained breathing apparatus for the crew. A soundproofed generator lives in a side locker, an awning deploys from the starboard side, and a weather vane is carried on the right rear corner — wind direction being the first thing anyone needs in a release of anything. It seats three, including the NRBC section chief. The function plaques on the body are removable, so a given vehicle shows only the role it is doing that day.

Vehicles went to the ESIS at Cazaux in the Gironde, Saint-Dizier in the Haute-Marne, Nancy-Ochey in Meurthe-et-Moselle and Vélizy-Villacoublay in the Yvelines, with one at the Air Force's safety technicians' training centre at BA 120 Cazaux.

The vehicle in this record, registration 7132 0052, was photographed on the Bastille Day parade in Paris on 14 July 2021. Its convex bonnet identifies a Ford Duratorq 'Puma' engine, the post-2007 fitment, which is consistent with a vehicle delivered in 2013. Note that despite this record's slug the chassis is the 130, not the 110.