NEBCO gets new truck

GARFIELD - A new 2014 pumper tanker will provide a better initial attack at fires, Rob Taylor, fire chief for Northeast Benton County Volunteer Fire Department, said.

The new 3,000-gallon/1,250-gallons-per-minute pumper is build to the specifications of a pumper but has a larger water tank, Taylor said of the truck provided to the rural agency from Benton County.

“It will allow us to respond with one truck … it will allow us to have all the equipment we need for the initial attack instead of taking two trucks,” he said. “I think it’s going to really help us. We’ll be able to respond with fewer people and get more people to the scene. One of the problems we have in a volunteer department to deal with is getting people able to respond. We’ll be able to respond with this truck and not have to wait until we can get two trucks.

This will give us water support for the first 15 minutes or more and those first few minutes are crucial in life safety situations.”

NEBCO will turn an older 1984 tanker back into the county. “It’s totally worn out,” Taylor said.

Taylor said NEBCO received a new fire truck from the county in 2005 and NEBCO bought a new tanker in 2010.

The county has worked for years to replace trucks and provide other assistance to all of the fire departments in the county, said Marc Trollinger, fire marshal.

The county has provided trucks, usually two each year, for some time. The county will continue to upgrade the fleet of vehicles with the combination pumper-tanker trucks that were delivered Wednesday. Those trucks are the fifth and sixth combination vehicles the county has bought, Trollinger said.

Fire trucks typical have a useful life of about 25 years, although smaller departments may keep trucks in service much longer than that, Trollinger said.

“We have trucks running right now that have been in service 30-plus years,” he said.

The county plans to reduce the fleet of fire vehicles from 84 to 50 with the combination pumper-tanker trucks, Trollinger said.

If the county continues to buy two trucks per year the fleet can be replaced on a 25-year cycle, he said.

The trucks, built by Deep South Fire Trucks in Seminary, Miss., cost the county $225,000 each this year.

Editor’s note: Information from the staff of the Rogers Morning News also contributed to this story.

News, Pages 1 on 08/07/2013