New truck to be added to fleet to replace nearly 25-year old vehicle.
Owen Sound's fire department is getting a new fire truck for its fleet.
At its meeting Monday night, city council approved awarding a $2.07-million tender to Fort Garry Fire Trucks for the supply and delivery of a new 100-foot mid-mount aerial platform fire truck.
A city staff report explains the city's fire service has adopted National Fire Protection Association standards as a best practice and one of its articles recommends fire apparatuses more than 15 years old should be upgraded or put into reserve status.
The company which manufactured the current Nova Quintech aerial fire truck being used by the fire department went out of business in the late 1990s, the staff report notes, making it not possible to be refurbished.
The report goes on to explain the city's fire department provided a fleet strategy as part of the 2017 budget process and recommended the 1995 Nova Quintech rear-mount aerial fire truck be replaced in 2020.
"We put money into reserves so we can buy equipment like this and try to plan it out over a number of years," Owen Sound Mayor Ian Boddy says. "The trucks up at the works department, the fire trucks, all those things have a plan of when they're going to need to be replaced and that there's money in reserves to do the purchase."
Owen Sound Fire Chief Doug Barfoot says the new truck will offer enhanced manoeuvrability over the 1995 model being put out of service.
"It is going to be a little better at getting into tighter spaces," Barfoot says.
Barfoot says the new fire truck will likely arrive sometime late next year or in early 2021, as the contractor is estimating a 14-month build time.
Link to original article on bayshorebroadcasting.ca: Owen Sound Council Approves Fire Truck Purchase