New Fairfield unveils new tanker
NEW FAIRFIELD — After waiting more than a year, New Fairfield Volunteer Fire Department’s Company A welcomed a new, $416,000 tanker to its fleet on Friday.
The 2021 Pierce/Freightliner M2-106 replaces Tanker 7 that Company A had used for more than 20 years to bring water to fire scenes.
Assistant Fire Chief Kristian Ebbesen said the original plan had been to refurbish the 1997 Freightliner
FL80, but that changed after Gowans-Knights, a Watertown-based fire apparatus and equipment company, evaluated the truck.
“The report we got back recommended that it be replaced,” said Ebbesen, adding the steel tanker was rusting and had been fixed a couple of times.
With a 1,800-gallon water tank, 1,250-gallon-per-minute pump and 350-horsepower engine, Ebbesen said Company A’s new tanker is a “pretty simple truck,” with everything needed to carry water.
“You could easily build a truck and it’ll be $1 million in two seconds, but we kept it basic,” he said. “We looked at what it’s going to be used for and went from there. There’s too nothing crazy on this truck — and we actually came in quite under budget.”
The new tanker was budgeted at $550,000, but cost $415,900 — most of which was covered by money from the town’s Fire Department Reserve Fund, Ebbesen said,
In November 2019, the Board of Selectmen voted to allow the fire department to use $353,600 from the reserve fund to buy the tanker.
Company A was responsible for the remainder of the cost and used money raised through annual fundraisers like “Shred It Day” and letter drives to cover the balance, Ebbesen said.
Tanker 7 is in limited service as firefighters familiarize themselves with the truck.