City buys used fire engine, waits for new ladder truck
The city has purchased a used fire truck from the New Paltz Fire Department and expects to have a new ladder truck delivered about three months from now.
The New Paltz truck, a 1995 pumper, can put out 1,750 gallons of water per minute and will be used when one of Kingston’s other pumper trucks is out of service, which is often, city Fire Chief Mark Brown said Monday. The New Paltz truck brings the city’s pumper total to five.
“I feel like I am a heartbeat away from catastrophic [fire] engine problem,” Brown said. “You have to have engines to put fires out.
“They (the other pumpers) are down a lot, so I need to put a BandAid on it until I can get new apparatus,” the chief said.
The city bought the New Paltz truck, an E-1 Custom Pumper with 27,000 miles on it, for $7,501. The money came out of the Kingston Fire Department’s budget.
Brown said the department’s other four pumpers are 2001 model with 100,164 miles on in that’s in poor condition; a 2005 model with 76,000 miles, in fair condition; a 2007 model with 51,595 miles, in fair to good condition; an a 1993 model with 24,611 miles, in fair condition at best.
The truck purchased from New Paltz will be known as Engine 5, Brown said. On Monday, the New Paltz Fire Department insignias were being removed from the truck at Kingston’s Central Fire Station on East O’Reilly Street.
The city’s new ladder truck is in the process of being built — the cab in Michigan and the rest of the truck in Pennsylvania — and will replace a 1998 truck that has been beset by breakdowns in recent years.
The new ladder truck, like the one it’s replacing, is a tiller truck, which requires drivers at both the front and rear. A straight truck is driven only from the front.
The ladder truck has a price tag of $950,000 and is being bought through a purchasing cooperative called the National Joint Powers Alliance.
Brown expects the truck to be delivered around Oct. 15.