A $150,000 budget allocation from the White County Commision will purchase a replacement engine and rescue equipment for the North End Volunteer Fire Department.
Fire Department Chief Will Brown said the funding will help the crew recover from a major operational setback. A vehicle crash sidelined their response fleet. Brown said the incoming four-door vehicle resolves the seating limitations and improves response efficiency.
“This is going to help us that we won’t be running our main primary truck all the time,” Brown said. “It’s a two-door truck, so this is going to open it up to us being able to haul more firemen to the scene and be geared up and ready to go.”
Brown said the acquisition also provides a critical equipment advantage by introducing dual sets of specialized extraction tools to the district.
The funding measure also establishes an 80/20 cost-share structure to help the Hickory Valley and BonDeCroft volunteer stations cover expensive pump repairs.
“It’s a very helpful thing because you take a repair on a truck, you’re looking anywhere from, it can be 5,000 dollars up to 30,000, just depends on what you have to work on,” Brown said. “If you have to go in on a pump, a minimum you’re looking at 20,000 plus.”
Brown noted that aging apparatuses present significant operational safety risks if critical water pressure systems fail while interior crews are active inside a structure.
“We can be in a situation where we’re at a fire, we can lose pumps, we can lose trucks like that, and then that puts your firemen at risk,” Brown said. “Because if we’ve got people interior, you take their lifeline of water away when that truck goes down.”
The legislative decision was finalized during the latest full court meeting, and delivery of the replacement apparatus is anticipated soon, Brown said.
“They approved it to go ahead and pay the BonDeCroft and the Hickory Valley and ours, the money to allocate to us,” Brown said. “We’re hoping within the next couple weeks to see the new truck delivered.”
Brown said the department had recently outfitted the original engine with specialized motor vehicle crash rescue tools just prior to the accident.
“All of our new tools, we hadn’t had them a week, so that was a big setback for us. Because we didn’t have another truck that had enough compartment space, as much stuff as we carry,” Brown said.
The station is currently awaiting final preparations on its remaining supply lines while auditing equipment losses, including ladders and scene lighting, Brown continued.
“We’re waiting on our hoses to get tested,” Brown said. “Once they get them tested, I know we lost some ladders, we lost some Milwaukee stand-up lights. We’ve lost quite a bit of stuff, but thank goodness that we didn’t lose our air packs or our new tools; they checked out okay, they’ve been recertified. Everything’s good with them. We’re blessed that the Good Lord kept our firemen with us.”