DANBURY — The city plans to buy a new fire truck for $881,000 before the price jumps early next year.
Danbury City Council unanimously approved on Thursday night the purchase of the apparatus, which would serve as a pumper and rescue truck. The truck is expected to arrive by Jan. 1.
Plans to purchase the truck came together in the last few weeks as the department realized its oldest truck, a 2006 Pierce Pumper, needed about $35,000 to $40,000 in repairs. Meanwhile, the manufacturing company warned its prices will increase in February 2022 due to supply chain shortages.
“I really don’t want to be last minute with this, but the truck is very suited to what we need,” Fire Chief Richard Thode said Monday. “We can get it very quickly for less money and in shorter time.”
The timing worked out great for Danbury, he said.
Pierce Manufacturing, which has supplied all of Danbury’s apparatuses, was already building a truck. The parts were purchased months ago, so the supply chain won’t be a problem, Thode said in his Oct. 26 letter to City Council.
Pierce estimated that new orders for trucks placed in the spring or summer would take 12 to 18 months to be delivered, Thode said.
The same day Thode learned this from Pierce, Danbury’s fire mechanics determined the 2006 Pierce Pumper needs a lot of repair, he said. The truck has run more than 12,000 engine hours and 110,000 miles.
“The idea of spending that much money on a vehicle that has long since outlived it’s (sic) useful life, only to dispose of it next year, did not make sense to me,” Thode wrote in his letter.
The career department plans to use the new apparatus as a pumper and rescue truck, allowing firefighters to delay the refurbishment of its 2007 Pierce rescue truck until the 2022-23 fiscal year.
“Once we get this new truck, that truck will not be on the road every single day,” Thode said.
The original rescue truck would only be used for “special calls” — those that are particularly unusual and serious, he said. After its refurbishment, it should “easily” last another 10 years, he said. Equipment normally kept in trailers can be stored on that truck.
That truck has about 6,900 engine hours and 53,000 miles, Assistant Fire Chief William Lounsbury told City Council. Even though it’s only a year younger than the 2006 pumper, the rescue has “about half of the wear and tear” that the pumper has.
The rescue truck wasn’t used immediately when it arrived, he said.
“Because of the way it was purchased and what it was assigned to do in the very beginning, it did not see the same service life that the pumper did,” Lounsbury told City Council.
The new truck comes with equipment, which the old truck lacked, Thode said. One side of the new truck will be set up for the pumper operations, with a hose and axes. The other side will be set up for the rescue work, with “jaws of life” and other equipment, he said.
Future planning
Part of the funding will come out of the capital budget for fire apparatuses, Thode said. The rest will be covered with a lease payment. Another truck is coming off its lease, so the timing worked well there, too, he said.
Thode said he’s seen apparatus prices rise by 4 to 6 percent, but never a double digit percent increase.
Even if they had more time for a deeper study, the firefighters still would have wanted to get a truck like this, Thode said.
“I don’t want to give the impression we’re making do,” he said. “We’re not just buying something off the lot. It’s very well suited.”
The department had time to request “tweaks” to the truck, such as the layout of compartments and the number of seats, Thode said.
Thode doesn’t expect any other major apparatus purchases in the near future, but the city is exploring the need for a new fire headquarters. The HVAC and buildings systems are outdated at the New Street station. There’s no training classroom, no room inside for mechanics to work on trucks and not enough space for administrative offices, Thode said.
“We’ve just kind of outgrown the building,” he said.
Source: https://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Fearing-higher-cost-in-future-Danbury-approves-16603201.php
