The DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department is in need of a new pumper according to County Fire Chief Donny Green.
Green addressed the county commission during an all committees meeting Thursday night at the courthouse, renewing a request he made last summer with the county budget committee
Chief Green, last year, asked that $180,000 be budgeted to purchase a new fire pumper to replace the Midway engine which is a 1979 model. By doing this, Green said “we can take the 1975 model truck out of service at the Austin Bottom station and place the 1979 Midway truck at Austin Bottom. This station (Austin Bottom), he said has a low call volume and the 1979 truck should be adequate to “hold them over for a few more years”. Green said the county is looking at major expenses if it continues to keep the 1975 truck at the Austin Bottom Station.
Green’s funding request last summer was not included in the budget this year but he was told that the issue could be revisited later. “At the beginning of the last budget year we had talked about how we were up on our replacement schedule to get a truck out at Midway. At that time I was asked to wait until after the first of the year to look at revenues to see where we were at. To give you an update, the truck that we have at Austin Bottom is the last of the 1975 model trucks that we built years ago. We got it in under the radar last year on the pump test when ISO was here. We actually got it pump tested and we got credit for it but at the same time when we were doing that in March last year we were talking about replacing a truck and he (ISO official) was considering that. The pump test is coming up again in June this year and I am pretty confident that we can’t stretch that truck, the one that’s over there (Austin Bottom). The goal was to move the one from Midway over there (Austin Bottom) and replace the one at Midway. They (Midway) are one of the original four stations that were built when this thing (fire department) all started in 1975 and they (Midway) still haven’t ever got a (new) truck. All of the other original stations have had them, except for the Cookeville Highway station,” said Chief Green.
After the Midway Station gets a new fire truck, Chief Green said the county should begin making plans to replace the truck at the Cookeville Highway Station. “I think they (Cookeville Highway) are next after Midway. I’ve done some checking and (Assistant Chief) Jeff (Williams) has done some checking about some demos. We have bought a couple of demos in the past. That usually saves us about $15,000 to $20,000 off a new price of a chassis. I found some (demos) but the last ones we bought, one for Johnson’s Chapel and one for Keltonburg, we paid like $164,000 for those. The demos we’re finding right now are in the $180,000 to $185,000 range. All that’s got to do with this emissions change. A new one is about $210,000. The two demos we found, one was $185,000 and the other was $183,000. That’s just something for you to consider,” he said.
Chief Green urged the county commission to follow a regular replacement schedule on fire department vehicles, or risk several of them having to be replaced at once. “If we’re not careful, we’re going to wind up with a bunch of trucks all the same age again. We’ve been fortunate to get in on some of these grants over the years. If we can keep this rolling to where we can get those updated we won’t get behind. That one (Midway) and Cookeville Highway, I would like to see us, out of respect for the original stations, to get them a new truck out there (Cookeville Highway) maybe next year or where you think it will fit into the budget cycle. It (Cookeville Highway truck) is definitely one that needs to be replaced after we get this one at Midway replaced. We bought a used truck from Brentwood a few years ago. We found it on Gov Deals. Its going to last us but it probably won’t last as long there at Cookeville Highway as it would last at one of the less busy stations. That one out there is pretty busy. It’s a 1987 model and Brentwood retired it a few years ago. It would probably do fine at one of the outlying stations,” said Chief Green.
As far as Chief Green’s request for funding of a fire truck at Midway this year, County Mayor Mike Foster said Thursday night “I’ll get with you and we’ll look and see what’s in capital projects”.
Meanwhile, Chief Green updated the county commission Thursday night on a new brush truck the fire department will be getting thanks to a grant. “We did get our grant for the brush truck to replace that 1975 brush truck that we have out at the main station. It will be coming in probably in late August. It is an F 550 4X4 with a little brush truck package to get off the road and around in some of these lake places. It’s going to have a big enough pump that we can actually get around to some of these fill sites at the lake and actually fill our pumpers. We’ve got a 500 gallon per minute pump on it. We were going to have to replace that (old brush truck) but that grant helped us with our rotation a little bit so maybe we can stay on track in getting these replaced. I don’t want us getting in as bad a shape as we were last time and have six or seven bad trucks that are on their last leg all at once. Right now we can move these older trucks outs to the outlying stations that don’t have the call volume and make them last a few more years,” said Chief Green.
The department also recently purchased a pre-owned rescue vehicle. “We carried some money over last year,” said Chief Green. ” We were looking for a used equipment truck but didn’t find one by the last budget cycle last year. We carried it over this year and we found one in New Jersey. It’s a 1992 model. It sounds like an old truck but it had 11,000 original miles on it. It looks like a show parade truck. It was kept in and they washed it every time they went out. We’ve got it in out there now. Its twenty years old but I see us getting ten more years of service out of it at least. We’re using it for our rescue truck because its in better shape than the rescue truck we were using so we moved those tools over to our equipment truck which carries all of our support type stuff. It goes to every structure fire,” he said.
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