The Mountain Home (AR) Fire Department (MHFD) is ready to part ways with its 1984 Grumman Aerialcat 104-foot ladder truck, but the department has not found anyone willing to take the apparatus, reports ktlo.com.

MHFD is expecting a refurbished 2015 Sutphen ladder truck in July from Brindlee Mountain Fire Apparatus in Union Grove, Ala. Once that apparatus arrives, MHFD will take the Grumman, part of the department’s fleet since 1987, out of service.

Brindlee Mountain employees will then take the Grumman back to Alabama upon delivery of the Sutphen and attempt to sell it for $5,000 on behalf of the city. Officials say if no buyer is found after 30 days Brindlee Mountain Fire Apparatus will most likely begin selling off individual parts to any Grumann Aerielcats still in service.

Grumman Emergency Products closed in 1992, making replacement parts difficult to find for the Aerialcat. When the Sutphen was purchased in May 2020, it was believed that the department’s Aerialcat was one of only three still on duty in the United States.

In addition, the Aerialcat weighs 67,000 pounds—thus it can’t be driven on public roadways unless it is being used as an emergency vehicle.

The 2015 Sutphen had been in service with a fire department in New York until earlier this year; it’s in the process of being refurbished and repainted. Officials will inspect the truck in early July and expect to have it in Mountain Home around July 10.

Police are expected to charge an alleged drunk driver after she slammed into the back of a Niagara Falls (NY) Fire Department apparatus at Pine Avenue and 10th Street yesterday afternoon, reports Yahoo.com.

Officials say the 30-year-old driver was traveling north on 10th Street when she drove into the back of Truck 1, which was returning to the 10th Street station after responding to a call on 19th Street.

No firefighters were injured in the crash, officials say, and the driver and a 5-year-old child inside the vehicle were also uninjured.

Police officers conducted field sobriety tests on the driver and indicated that she had failed those tests; she briefly resisted arrest. An open bottle of liquor was recovered from the suspect’s vehicle.

The driver is facing charges of driving while ability impaired by a combination of drugs and alcohol. She also faces potential Leandra’s Law charges and a charge of driving with a suspended license.

Montrose (CO) City Councilors voted to place Montrose Fire Department’s Station 1 on the city’s register of historic places, reports kjct8.com.

The station—built in 1910—is the third city property to be added to the registry since the city created the program in 2019.

The station features a stepped parapet wall with a stone identification panel. Below that is a decorative brick cornice. A similar cornice is found over the original truck bay.

By Alan M. Petrillo

Dawson County (GA) Fire and Emergency Services needed better fire and emergency medical services (EMS) coverage on the west side of the county, so it came up with $1.56 million to design and build what would become the county’s eighth fire/EMS station.

“That part of the county is a pretty mountainous area and we had pretty extensive response times out there,” says Danny Thompson, Dawson County’s chief. “We needed to reduce our response times for fire and medical calls and the way to do that was to add a new station out in that area.” Dawson notes that the $1.56 million allocated had to cover site improvements as well as the work done through a design-build contract.

Dawson County is a mostly rural county with a population of 27,000, located an hour north of Atlanta. “We have a lot of urban/rural interface with some mountainous territory,” Thompson points out, “and cover 214 square miles.” He adds that the new station houses an engine with a 1,000-gallon water tank, a 3,000-gallon water tender (tanker), and an Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulance.

“This is the first station we’ve built in 11 years, and a lot of things have changed in the fire and EMS service in that time,” Thompson observes. “We wanted to be sure that the new station had a number of safety features in terms of removing contaminants from the apparatus bay