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.

“I have great respect for what these firefighters do” City Councilman Dick Haley said after the fire demonstration Saturday, May 21, at the city’s fire training center on Public Safety Way. “It was a graphic example of why they ask us to keep certain levels of manpower and why they need certain equipment.”

Fire Ops 101 – a demonstration that challenged city officials with tasks such as cutting into a damaged vehicle, climbing a four-story tower while wearing 80 pounds of turnout gear, finding a body inside a smoke-filled room and spraying a fire hose without losing grip – was held two days after the City Council agreed to spend $250,000 to pay for upgraded fire equipment.

Fire Chief David Duffy called the training a perfect opportunity for those making financial decisions affecting his department to see how equipment is used.

“I think it’s important for our city council and managers to understand the hands-on work that we do everyday, and the specialty tools we need to do that,” Duffy said.

Mayor Jason Scott hefted a 50-pound hydraulic cutter into the wedge of a car door, simulating the process firefighters go through to free crash victims. Within minutes, he was sweating and breathing heavily under the weight of the machine.

“To see what that tool is going through, how it manipulates you around, it gives you a new appreciation for (firefighters’) work,” Scott said.

In January, the department took stock of its assets to determine which gear had exceeded its useful life expectancy, according to the report used to request money from the City Council on Thursday, May 19.