This is a beautiful truck,” said Chief Dan Smith.The last time a ladder truck was purchased was in 1986 for the price of about $300,000. The newest addition to the fleet was previously priced at $1,006,782.Above all, Smith praised the new truck for its updated safety features.

“It’s got a lot of options that allow for safer more efficient operations,” he said.For example it’s much easier to carry a saw for cutting into roofs; the platform which holds up to four men also has lighting the older unit did not; and the deployment of water is less labor intensive thanks to a 2,000 gallon per minute pump.“Fires burn so much hotter now and faster, that we need faster water and this allows us to have that quickly,” Smith said. “We can literally pull right up put it in the air, and throw water,” he said.

“When this thing pulled down the street I was very proud of it, and I know all the guys are. We will be proud of how we can utilize it to help people. That the thing I care most about.”During the build, firefighters traveled to Wisconsin to inspect the truck and make final adjustments to the design.

“They found 14 or 15 minor things they wanted to change, and the company was great,” Smith recalled.

“Chief Smith and firefighter Todd Smith were really the catalysts in the department who did all the leg work and review and put together the specs for the truck. It was a lot of time and effort,” Hornell Mayor Shawn Hogan credited.