City welcomes new ladder truck to fire department

Felicia Frazar | The Seguin Gazette 

Squeals of excitement from children and cheers from adults filled the air as they wiped down the city’s newest fire truck before pushing it into Central Fire Station.

Children and adults alike clamored for the opportunity to welcome the city’s new ladder truck to the fleet during a push-in ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 24.

“This is not something that happens very often,” Seguin Fire Chief Dale Skinner said. “These trucks are very expensive and they don’t come along very often, especially a ladder truck.”

The 2023 Pierce low-profile ladder truck will replace the department’s 2008, which is getting harder and more expensive to keep running, Skinner said.

“Typically, ladder trucks only have a service life of approximately 15 years as a front line vehicle. Ours is no exception,” he said. “The current ladder truck is getting too costly to maintain.”

A push-in ceremony is a tradition that dates back to when fire departments used horses and carts to carry their equipment to a fire, Skinner said.

After responding to a fire, once the firefighters would return to the fire station, they would unhitch the hose cart, wash it down and walk it back in, Skinner said.

“You can imagine the streets back in those days were not clean,” he said. “So they hosed down the hose cart and then the firefighters would literally have to push the cart all the way back into the fire station.”

So, in honoring that tradition, the department sprayed down the new truck and invited the community to join firefighters in wiping it down before pushing it into the fire station. With such a large truck, they had help with Seguin Fire Apparatus Operator Patrick Hoeffner behind the wheel.

“Today is a christening, if you will, of a brand new ladder truck,” Skinner said.

The chief smiled as children and adults meandered around the station checking out the new truck and the others already in service.

“I was super excited and amazed at the number of people from the community that came out to help us celebrate this momentous occasion,” he said.

While the department took delivery of the truck just a few weeks ago, the process of purchasing and designing the truck was a two-year process, Skinner said.

“This truck was ordered in February 2022. It is a very long wait,” he said.

A crew of four of the department’s firefighters worked to ensure the $1.6 million truck was designed with the community in mind, Skinner said.

“Our crew that helped design the truck to serve the community is Assistant Chief Gerrick Herbert, Battalion Chief Kevin Rhea, Lt. Joe Blahnik and Lt. Garrett Sanders,” he said. “These gentlemen put in countless hours of time designing a truck that meets the needs of our community.”

The steel aerial ladder has a 100-foot vertical reach and 450-gallon water capacity, and it can pump out 2,000 gallons of water per minute. One of the more unique features is the rear steer, which allows the back tires to turn along with the front tires, helping the long truck make sharper turns, Skinner said.

“It makes navigating our narrow streets and corners much easier,” he said.

While the 2008 truck has a platform, the new truck does not, which has prompted Skinner’s crews to work out new tactical processes for different rescue operations, the chief said.

“We are having to change some of our tactics and how we can best utilize the ladder truck in rescue operations,” he said.

The truck’s schematics showed the 2023 truck’s height was a little shorter than the 2008; however, it was a little taller than thought and Skinner feared it might now fit in the bay at Central Fire Station, he said.

“It does fit, just barely,” he said. “One of the reasons we went with the low profile ladder truck was so it could fit in Central Fire Station. The specifications actually indicate it is not as tall as our previous ladder truck. We’ve loaded our equipment on it and we’ve driven it around. The truck itself is starting to settle and from the date we took delivery of it to today, it is probably lower by almost two inches.”

Skinner said the new truck will go into service at the beginning of September.

“We are excited to add this new ladder truck to our fleet and continue providing the highest level of service to our community,” he said.

View article on SeguinGazette.com