New fire trucks finally roll into town
Finally, after nearly a year, two brand new “commercial pumper” fire trucks, manufactured by E-One, rolled across the Matlacha Bridge into Pine Island Tuesday.
“These were purchased to replace our outdated engines from 1995 and 2001,” Fire Chief Ben Mickuleit of the Matlacha/Pine Island Fire Control District said. “Once these were approved, we began the process of designing the two engines on April 5 of last year.. We even went to the facilities to see where they would be built.”
Each truck is built on a Freightliner 4-door top-mount pump chassis with a Cummins 360HP motor. Both trucks have a 1,000-gallon water tank capacity with 20 gallons of foam.
“There’s also much more storage on these new trucks for storage of equipment,” Mickuleit said. “Everything from Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (Air Packs) to our new extrication equipment. And it’s important that both trucks are identical so our firefighters can get the equipment quickly and efficiently.
Mickuleit said the trucks were needed to ensure the protection of island residents and businesses.
“These trucks are the lifeline to protecting our fine citizens,” Mickuleit said. “Reliability is important and we need to ensure that our equipment is reliable. Both of the new engines are equipped with a 1,000-gallon internal water tank for a quick fire attack and a rear booster reel (1-inch rubber fire hose) for a quicker attack on certain fire scenarios. Both of these trucks were purchased in a fiscally responsible manner using an existing state bid to ensure the best pricing available. The two trucks will be placed in service in the very near future once our equipment has been installed and crews have trained with the engines.
The chief said the two trucks will soon be “officially” unveiled.
“We are planning a ‘truck ceremony’ in the near future that follows a long tradition that goes back to the days of horse-drawn fire wagons,” Mickuleit said. “Back in the horse-drawn days, firefighters would manually push the new truck into the station. We are planning the same type of ceremony in the near future and will announce the date in The Eagle.”