Firefighters will have another tool in their tool belt after the arrival of the new aerial fire truck.
Firefighters will have another tool in their tool belt after the arrival of the new aerial fire truck.
The custom-designed fire truck arrived in mid-October, and firefighters will be training to use the truck until the end of the month before it will be fully operational.
“St. Albert, the way it's growing with all the complexes going up right now, we will be more and more in need of a machine like this,” Bernd Gretzinger, deputy chief of logistics said.
Gretzinger was one of five members on the team who spent ten months custom designing and ordering the $1,468,000 piece of equipment. The ladder truck will be used specifically on buildings that are over 10 storeys tall or have a large footprint, such as Servus Place or Costco.
The truck is a traditional aerial with plenty of safety features. It has spot chains for the tires in the winter like all of the local trucks, it is advanced life support capable. This means the truck will have all of the paramedic equipment on board.
The tower on the truck is 30 metres high and can pump out 8,000 litres per minute at the top of the truck.
“We need to thank city council for the support on this,” Gretzinger said. “The last aerial wasn't working the way it should have so they helped us acquire the funds for us to purchase this ahead of schedule.”
The last aerial truck arrived in the city in 2009 and was plagued with a lofty amount of repairs and problems. The truck continued to have radiator and coolant issues, which required five repairs in 2015 and three repairs in 2016. The truck was sent up to Fort McMurray to battle the blazes this summer and functioned well, but upon return the truck was out of service for six weeks for several different maintenance issues.
Since the delivery in 2009, the aerial was out of service 70 per cent of the time between July 2012 and October 2014, and in a 12-month period in 2014 and 2015 the truck was out of service 95 per cent of the time. The original aerial truck was planned to be replaced in 2028 but because of the ongoing issues council voted to expedite the date and replace it in 2016.
During the first aerial's downtime for repairs, the city would have to rely on other communities for support on large fires.
“We relied on mutual aid so much,” Gretzinger said. “If one of our trucks goes down we will phone Edmonton or Spruce Grove to come back us up. Now that we have a truck that is good to go hopefully we won't have to worry about that anymore.”
Most medium-sized municipalities in Alberta have two aerial fire trucks. Grande Prairie has had two ladder trucks since 2000 and has only half the population of St. Albert.
The fate of the first aerial truck is still unknown.
At the Oct. 24 council meeting, councillors discussed whether to keep the old aerial fire truck to use as a backup or to sell it and put the money towards purchasing another new aerial fire truck. That major capital purchase is expected in 2019, pending the approval of council of the day.
Councillors deferred any decision on the matter until administration can report on what would be an appropriate minimum sale price for the unit.
– with files from Doug Neuman.
