Firefighters from several department extinguish an ambulance fire outside the emergency room at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue on Friday, June 2, 2017, Suffolk County fire officials said.  There were no reported injuries.

“We don’t really need (a replacement),” Peebles said. “We’ve got one truck that we hardly ever use, and it needs a lot of the things on the wrecked one, so we’ll take what we can off the wrecked one and use it for that one.”

Staff said the only holdup on stripping the totaled pumper and possibly selling it for scrap was a settlement with the city’s insurance carrier.

“It’s a good thing we had a spare,” the mayor agreed. “We’ll take the tires, pump and all the good stuff off the one that was wrecked. Of course, we haven’t settled with the insurance company yet, but the wrecked truck has good tires and the best pump we’ve got. That pump is the most important thing; it costs $700 to $800 just to have it tested. We can’t take that stuff off until the insurance claim is settled, though.”

The department bought the engine, a model AT41 made by Peter Pirsch & Sons in Kenosha, Wisc., in 1970. The engine, the department’s first diesel-powered apparatus, had an eight-cylinder Cummins engine and a five-speed manual transmission with overdrive, said former McLean Volunteer Fire Chief Clyde Clark.

“Diesel engines last longer,” he said. “We weren’t worried at the time about fuel costs or carbon footprint.”

The bright-red engine is a showpiece now, but it went out on every single fire call until the organization bought a newer engine in 1979.