Since buildings can collapse, the fire department is required to stay a certain distance away from a burning building. A ladder pumper will allow the fire department to attack a fire from above. This could help the fire department lower the town’s insurance rating.
The department paid $10k for the ladder pumper, which has 52,000 miles on it which is by far a steal as typically ladder trucks can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"[Chewelah Firefighter and police officer] Dave Watts is extremely good at searching out extremely good fire units for extremely low prices,” Chewelah Fire Chief Dave Deveau said.