Fire Station 2 gets new fire truck
Fire Chief Ben Mickuleit is very excited that Station 2 in St. James City has gotten the new fire truck which was purchased earlier this year. The 2020 Freightliner will complete the matching ensemble making all the station trucks in the district identical.
“If we had gone with a custom vehicle, it would have gone much quicker, but it would have been more expensive,” said Mickuleit.
The old truck, he said, will likely be refurbished and sold.
“Now all the trucks are the exact same truck, with the exact same layout and the exact same look,” said Mickuleit. “The only thing that’s different is the sticker with the number of the station. This is a lot more uniform and a lot more cost effective.”
The layout is important, he said, because the equipment will be easily found by the responders, as now it will all be in the same place on any given truck in the district.
According to Mickuleit, it has been a tradition to call the Matlacha Bridge attendant to let them know when the truck is coming in order to get a photo of it coming home onto the island.
“In the previous years we had mismatched trucks,” said Mickuleit, “now we’re completely identical.”