The Calera (OK) Fire Department is working to bring home “The Spirit of Oklahoma,” an up-for-sale fire truck sent to New York City to help with 9/11 recovery, reports newson6.com.

The bond between New York and Oklahoma began 26 years ago when 10 New York firefighters came to the rescue following the Oklahoma City Bombing; those same 10 men lost their lives in the September 11 attacks.

Following the latter attack, students at a Fort Gibson school raised nearly half a million dollars to buy a new truck, which was named the “Spirit of Oklahoma” and sent to New York City to aid. However, it was recently sold at auction.

Officials now want to buy the truck from its current owner in Massachusetts. He gave the department two weeks to raise the $25,000 to buy and transport the truck to Oklahoma. As of this posting, the Calera Fire Department is up to $2,303 on its GoFundMe page, which has a deadline of June 15.

By Alan M. Petrillo

North America’s first electric fire engine, manufactured by Pierce Manufacturing Inc., has been in service at Madison (WI) Fire Department’s Station 8 for nearly three weeks and has responded to 200 calls with what the fire chief calls “flawless performance.”

Madison Fire chief Steven Davis dubbed the Pierce Volterra pumper “the coolest fire truck in the world.” He says the electric pumper, “Drives one hundred percent like a traditional pumper. It has a lot of electric torque and our drivers love how it handles and how quiet it is in the cab.”

Dave Archer, Pierce’s vice president of engineering, says the Pierce Volterra pumper is built on a Pierce Enforcer™ custom chassis and cab with seating for six firefighters. The rig is powered by a 155-kW hour battery pack, specially designed to meet Madison Station 8’s daily duty cycle, and housed in an 18-inch-wide compartment at the rear of the crew cab.

The pumper has a Cummins ISB 6.7-liter 350-horsepower (hp) diesel engine to power its 1,500-gallon per minute (gpm) pump, and to serve as a backup if the battery pack becomes depleted. Gross vehicle weight rating on the pumper is 42,000 pounds, the rig has a 500-gallon water tank, a Command Zone™ display on the pump panel and on the dash, and 150 cubic feet of compartmentation, plus ladder storage space.

Jim Johnson, Oshkosh Corp. executive vice president and president of Fire & Emergency, points out that the Madison electric pumper uses an Oshkosh patented parallel-electric drive train featuring an electro-mechanical infinitely variable transmission. “This allows zero emissions operation when powered by the integrated onboard batteries,” Johnson says, “and can be coupled to the Cummins diesel engine to provide continuous and uninterrupted power to the pumping system or the drive system.”

Davis notes Madison had Pierce configure the pumper’s operation “to run the pump off the diesel engine in order to simplify operation for our firefighters so they don’t have to worry about draining the battery. When the operator puts the vehicle in pump gear, the diesel automatically powers up. It also will automatically power up if the battery becomes depleted, with the switch over happening seamlessly.”

Davis says the pumper carries 500 feet of 5-inch LDH (large diameter hose), and has two 300-foot 2-1/2-inch cross lays, and one 300-foot 1-3/4-inch cross lay. “We have not had the electric pumper at a working structure fire yet, but it has extinguished some motor vehicle fires,” he points out. “On the 200 calls that we’ve responded to with this engi

SVI Trucks—Township of Langley Fire Department, Langley City, British Columbia, Canada, heavy rescue. Spartan Metro Star cab and chassis; Cummins L9 400-hp engine; 18-foot walk-around rescue body; Onan Protec 30-kW PTO generator; Audiovox Voyager rearview camera; OnScene Solutions heavy-duty aluminum cargo slides; Ramsey 9,000-pound portable electric winch. Dealer: Sean Montaque, Safetek Emergency Vehicles, Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada.

MORE FIRE APPARATUS ARTICLES>>

Construction has started on a third fire station for the Barrington-Countryside Fire District, reports Lake & McHenry County Scanner.

Station 39 is being built and the project will be completed early next year. Station 39 will enable the Barrington-Countryside fire district to respond to more than 90% of all emergency calls throughout the District in six minutes or less.

Station 39’s location will also help reduce insurance premiums paid by many residents and businesses.