At a special town meeting, voters were asked to decide two questions: The first asked if voters would allow the Select Board to put $35,000 into a newly-created reserve fund to buy a new fire truck, and the second asked if voters would allow the Pittsfield Volunteer Fire Department, or PVFD, to use up to $200,000 to buy a new tanker truck.  

In March, voters approved the purchase of the truck and tabled the creation of the reserve fund. But a petition forced the second vote Wednesday night.

Town Clerk Patricia Haskins said the fire truck question was approved by a vote of 69-31, with one ballot spoiled.

District Chief Dan Merz said some West Side companies have gone from being among the slower areas to the busier ones. Some crews are making as many as 30 runs in a day.

 

Adding another fire station would cut down on response times, lessen the wear on personnel and reduce the number of equipment failures, according to Merz.

To add a new station, the department will need more new recruits, according to Matt Alter, the president of firefighter union Local 48.

Crew representation from all three shifts transferred water in a custom leather fire bucket from the old engine 62 to the new one. After transferring some of the water they used a hose line from the old engine to wet the new engine down before all personnel pushed the new engine into quarters for its first time in service. This is the first time a dedication ceremony has been used to put a new engine in service by our agency – a practice that will continue. The same ceremony as described above will be used to christen the new Engine 54. Fire Chief Scott Freitag will lead the service, and the Central Arizona Honor Guard and Pipes and Drums will be present as well.

A mobile video surveillance system that can be mounted on a telescoping pole transmits in both standard video and infrared which can detect images through smoke.  It was used recently to locate a person who was having a medical emergency in the middle of a large crowd of people.  

Two camera-equipped drones give incident commanders an “eye in the sky” to help direct firefighting and rescue operations.

The larger of the two drones comes outfitted with an infrared camera that is sensitive enough to detect a person’s body heat in water. This will help direct rescue boats to a more precise location in a river or lake.