The city of Dayton will spend about $1.3 million to buy two new fire engines and an emergency medical unit to replace some of the aging vehicles in its fleet. After some tight budget years, the city is now investing in capital equipment purchases that are strategic rather than strictly reactive and out of crisis, said Dayton fire Chief Jeff Payne.
Dayton commissioners recently authorized spending $1.07 million on two top-mount pumper fire trucks, which will replace engines built in 1993 and 1994.
The engines are 1,500-gallon-per-minute class A pumps. Their tanks can hold about 750 gallons of water.
The purchase will help rotate some of the oldest fire-suppression vehicles out of the system, Payne said.
"We'll get 15 good years out of them," Payne said. "And with the newer engines, we'll have lower maintenance costs."
The fire department has eight front-line fire engines, which are used everyday, except when they require maintenance.
When those trucks are in the shop, the department has four reserve engines, which were built in 1983 but were retrofitted between 1989 to 1994, Payne said.
When the department takes ownership of the new vehicles, the engines they replace will be scrapped because of their age, Payne said.
The front-line fleet includes two engines purchased in 2013, two purchased in 2010 and two purchased in 2002.
The fire department is expected to receive the new engines in about nine months. But it expects to receive its new emergency medic unit a couple months sooner than that.
The new, $248,750 vehicle replaces a unit purchased in 1997. That vehicle will be taken out of operation. The city's seven front-line medic units make thousands of runs every year, officials said.
The average age of the units is 8.4 years old.