The addition to the department's fleet will help meet a growing demand to provide around-the-clock medical services in the city. The last time the CFD had its own ambulance was in the 1950s.

That will soon change as the department is in the process of using leftover money from the purchase of its new ladder truck to buy a new ambulance.

The Charlottesville Fire Department was allotted nearly $1.6 million to purchase its new ladder truck, but only spent $1.42 million.

The new bright red truck, which cost the district between $100,000 to $160,000, gives local emergency medical services crews updated technology and tools to help residents in crisis on the west side of the peninsula near Artondale. Lt. Geoff North, a medical service officer for Fire & Medic One, gave tours of the new 2018 Ford F-450 ambulance. "It has a lot of technology and improvements for doing our job," North said. "We have powered structures on board, we have a powered stair chair. This apparatus has some cameras that give us an idea of what is going on behind us. These are much cleaner-burning vehicles, which is better for us and the environment. So if we are going to a neighborhood in the middle of the night we aren't waking up everybody when we get there."