JASON DUNOVANT
The Roanoke Times, Va.
(TNS)

BOONES MILL — The Boones Mill Volunteer Fire Department and Franklin County Public Safety have had a monthslong debate over funding for a new tanker truck. The two sides recognize the need for a new vehicle to better serve the community, but have been unable to come to an agreement.

“We are down at the moment,” Chief Riley Peters said. “We need a tanker bad.”

Boones Mill has spent the last few months using a replacement tanker truck provided by the county after the department’s previous truck was totaled in a wreck in February. Peters said the current truck does not fit the department or the community’s needs.

The department has been preparing for three years to request funding for a new tanker truck. Before it was totaled, the previous tanker truck was nearly 30 years old and nearing the end of its service life.

The replacement tanker truck provided by Franklin County Public Safety is nearly as old as the previous tanker and has been to a mechanic twice for repairs since it arrived, Peters said. It had sat unused by the county until it was put back into service for Boones Mill.

“The red lights work on it and it pumps water, that’s about it,” said Carey Altice, the department’s assistant chief. He added the truck does not have a siren or radio equipped.

Franklin County funds a majority of the vehicles and equipment used by volunteer fire and rescue departments around the county. The public safety department oversees the funding allocated by the Franklin County Board of Supervisors.

Volunteer departments do fund some of their own equipment, but those purchases have become more and more difficult as the cost of fire and rescue apparatus have skyrocketed. The cost of most fire trucks has more than doubled since 2010.

Franklin County funds the purchase of new emergency vehicles for volunteer fire departments on a rotation based on needs. Boones Mill was supposed to be next on the list for funding in the last budget cycle with what they believed was a budget of $850,000 provided by the county, Peters said.

Discussions began between Franklin County Public Safety and the Boones Mill Volunteer Fire Department for a new tanker truck started last year. Those discussions started to devolve, even before the loss of their previous tanker truck, when the department requested funding in January for a custom chassis replacement priced at $1.01 million.

Peters said the department requested an additional $100,000 over the $850,000 the county had budgeted. The remaining $60,000 would have been contributed out of the fire department’s own funds.

Franklin County’s deputy county administrator, Steve Sandy, said Boones Mill’s request for $1.01 million was not feasible for the county. The county rejected the proposal.

“The cost of what they proposed was just way beyond the budget of what we had available,” Sandy said.

When Boones Mill lost its tanker truck in a wreck in February, they suggested using a portion of the insurance settlement estimated at around $350,000 to be used for a new vehicle in addition to the $850,000 budgeted. Sandy said volunteer departments do not traditionally get the insurance settlement for a wrecked vehicle since the vehicles are titled to the county.

Soon after the previous tanker truck was totaled, the Franklin County Board of Supervisors approved nearly $650,000 to purchase a new tanker from a list of available trucks found by Franklin County Public Safety Chief Michael Fowler. He said the goal was to quickly provide them with a truck to fit their needs.

According to Peters, the vehicles offered did not

The Cheshire (MA) Fire Department recently took delivery of its new E-ONE Engine 3, Greenwood Emergency Vehicles said in a Facebook post.

“The members of the Cheshire Fire Department would like to personally thank all the residents of the Town of Cheshire for their continuous support of the department,” the department said in a Facebook post. “Because of that support, today we received our brand new E-ONE custom pumper. This new fire engine will replace an aging 2001 frontline apparatus and this new fire engine is a welcome addition to our fleet. Thank you to everyone that supports us each and every day. A special thank you to our salesman, Mike Nugai and the entire team at Greenwood Emergency Vehicles for their patience and support of us with this purchase.”

Key features of this design include:

• 6-person cab
• 500-hp motor
• 4000 EV transmission
• Hale 1,500-gpm pump
• 1,000-gallon water tank
• Short wheelbase
• Rescue style body
• Custom designed compartments by GEV
• Whelen lighting package

For more photos and features, click here.

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JARED BARTON
Columbus Telegram, Neb.
(TNS)

Over the next year or so, Columbus residents will notice Columbus Police and Fire vehicles starting to look a little different.

The Columbus Police Department cruisers were recently approved for a little bit of a rebrand, with vehicles incrementally adding new logos and coloration patterns.

To pay for the new graphics, the Columbus City Council voted to reallocate $16,100 from $40,000 of capital improvement program funds that had originally been designated for the purchase of rifles for the department. Interim Police Chief Brett Strecker told the council that they are starting with just a few vehicles, then progress year after year.

New Columbus Police vehicle striping and lettering

A conceptual rendering of the rebranded Columbus Police Department design for police cruisers.

“This is a change that’s probably been needed for quite some time. Our striping right now is outdated… This is going to look a lot nicer. It’s way more visible, and we just decided, if we can, let’s just do all the cars and do it that way,” Strecker said.

The reallocation of funds also allows officers more autonomy in choosing their rifles, according to the city council agenda packet.

The same resolution approved the purchase of two mobile fingerprint readers for $2,500 each. The devices will enable officers to scan fingerprints when they’re out in the field and cross-reference them with those in the penal system database.

In a different resolution, the police department was approved for a $27,736.12 purchase of nine new radar units and two TrafficStat devices. The radar units are replacing those in the department nearing end of life and the TrafficStat devices will be used to monitor various areas around town that have had reports of intense speeding.

“It’s difficult for us to enforce that because dates and time or times of day, days of the week, we don’t know when this is going on, so we just can’t have a car sitting there 24/7,” Strecker said. “We just don’t have resources for that. What this will do, if someone goes by at a high rate, it’s kind of like the speed trailer, but it’ll record date and time that it took place.”

The new devices will allow the department to analyze speeding patterns, which will then allow officers be deployed where they can catch speeders in the act.

For Columbus Fire Department, the council approved the purchase of a new ladder truck for $2.15 million, a new fire engine for $940,000 and five CPR devices for a combined $78,433.61, with funds being dispersed over two fiscal years. The department also received a trade-in value of $25,000 toward the cost of the CPR devices.

Simply put, the current ladder truck is not usable, Columbus Fire Chief Ryan Gray told the council.

“We are in desperate need of a ladder truck,” Gray said. “Our 2009 has had significant issues long before I’ve been here and it’s unreliable. We have dropped it to liability only. It is sitting in the apparatus bay. We will not take it out. We have to have the ladder truck.”

Columbus Fire Chief Ryan Gray

Columbus Fire Chief Ryan Gray answers questions during the Oct. 6 Columbus City Council meeting regarding the purchase of a fire engine and a ladder truck for the department.

Unlike civilian vehicles, fire trucks are not evaluated based on mileage, but rather on the number of hours they’ve been in use, Gray said. The current ladder truck is functional in this regard, but the hydraulic systems that operate the ladder are too far out of date to safely function in emergencies.

It’s not perfect, Gray said, but with the wait times and costs typically associated with these things, they go

Brian Hubert
Daily Freeman, Kingston, N.Y.
(TNS)

KINGSTON, N.Y. — The city’s Common Council is set to vote in November to borrow $8.5 million for a new Central Fire Station across from the current 1908 Central Station, clearing the way for construction to begin early next year.

The full Common Council is set to vote on the $8,500,000 bond measure at its November meeting after the Common Council’s Finance and Audit Comittee unaminously signed off on sending the proposal to the full Council at it’s meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 8.

The new fire station will be housed in an existing building at 18-30 E. O’Reilly St., with the current Central Fire Station converted to a station for the Kingston Fire Department’s ambulance service and house administrative offices. The city closed on the purchase of the 13,000-square-foot building for $612,000 from WMCHealth HealthAlliance in August. The building last housed records storage for HealthAlliance. It has also housed an ambulance company. Before that, it was owned by Central Hudson, which has an adjacent substation that will continue to be owned by the utility.

City Engineer John Schultheis said work on converting the building could begin in early 2026. He expects the project to take about a year.

“The current Central Fire Station has served well over 110 years, but the larger equipment needs exceed available space, and it has structural deficiencies,” Schultheis said. The current station will still need HVAC, electrical work, along with roof work and other rehab, he added.

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Plans shared with lawmakers show a new five-stall truck bay facing East O’Reilly St. in a portion of the building that will be demolished and reconstructed to be taller to accommodate the fire trucks being pulled inside.

Kingston Fire Department Chief Chris Rea said having five bays allows for growth, with each of the new bays accommodating up to a 75-foot-long ladder truck. Rea expects two of the bays to be utilized all the time, with the other three used on occasion.

Sleeping quarters for on-duty firefighters will also face E. O’Reilly St. The Deputy Chief on duty will have separate sleeping quarters within the structure. The building will also house showers, bathrooms, locker rooms, a kitchen big enough to have a long table, along with a “ready room” for firefighters. The station will also have a dispatch area and flex space that can serve for training and gatherings, and also as a central city emergency response location.

The building will also have storage for other firefighting equipment, including a garage space that will house the department’s fireboat.

Schultheis said the city will dress up the Hasbrouck Avenue side of the building with new windows and

BRAD NYGAARD
The Bismarck Tribune, N.D.
(TNS)

Officials on Wednesday dedicated the Bismarck Rural Fire Department’s newest facility, near the intersection of U.S. Highway 83 and 71st Street.

The 9,000-square-foot building houses three pieces of firefighting apparatus with room for more, and includes amenities such as a kitchen, laundry, office space, an exercise room and sleeping rooms.

The $3.2 million building is staffed on a part-time basis, but Fire Chief Dustin Theurer said the department is working toward full-time staffing in hopes of increasing public safety and reducing response times.

The bulk of the funding for the facility came from federal coronavirus pandemic relief funds to Burleigh County through the American Rescue Plan Act.

© 2025 The Bismarck Tribune (Bismarck, N.D.). Visit www.bismarcktribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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