Jack Lindner
Marietta Daily Journal, Ga.
(TNS)
MARIETTA — A little rain wasn’t going to stop Marietta officials from keeping with tradition Tuesday afternoon. To celebrate the Marietta Fire Department adding two new engines to its fleet, firefighters and City Council members helped push one of the trucks into the Station 55 garage.
The tradition — nicknamed a “push-in ceremony” — dates to the days of horse-drawn fire engines and equipment, according to Marietta Fire Chief Tim Milligan.
In the early days, firefighters would have to manually push their fire engine wagons into their stations since horses could not back them in. It has since been a tradition for firefighters to continue that legacy by pushing new engines into their stations themselves.
“The guys (firefighters) would take the horses off and push the old horse-drawn in,” Milligan said. “The (symbolism) of that has carried forward within the fire service for decades, and here we are.”
One of the department’s new engines will be located at Station 55, while the other will be stationed at Station 56 on Sawyer Road, according to Deputy Chief Joe Pacheco.
Both vehicles are more modern versions of their current engines, with no major changes to their equipment storage.
“That’s what we’re very fortunate about … We don’t have to stop what we are doing and retrain our folks to use these trucks,” Pacheco said. “These are cookie cutters of what we already have … so our downtime is minimal.”
Walker said each truck cost approximately $650,000, while all funds to pay for the new trucks were provided by the 2022 SPLOST, according to City Manager Bill Bruton.
Prior to the push-in ceremony, Bruton took a moment to thank city officials and taxpayers for their support of the fire department.
“I just want to thank the voters for allowing us to have this money to be able to do this, because we wouldn’t be able to do this otherwise,” Bruton said.
Councilman Johnny Walker echoed Bruton’s comments, calling the new trucks “taxpayer money well spent.”
“I want to let the people of Marietta know that SPLOST is very important because this is what we get,” Walker said. “We’ve got the best fire department in the state and this going to help make us even better.”
Milligan said the department is grateful the city and taxpayers are willing to provide them with up-to-date equipment to help make the community safe.
“I know our fleet team right now is taking a collective sigh of relief because we’ve got two new engines on the road, and they can take two older engines and do extensive repairs to them,” Milligan said. “We’re a very busy department, we cover a lot of miles in these trucks, and so to be able to swap out a third of your fleet is significant.”
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