The district hasn’t owned a ladder truck of any kind before, but the purchase was necessary to maintain the district’s fire insurance rating, said Fire Chief Randy Johnson. “It’s a good addition to the capacity of the district,” he said.  

The 1995 Simon Duplex truck was purchased from the Yakima Fire Department for $50,000. It has a platform on the end of a 102-foot ladder where firefighters can stand and direct water on a fire below. Captain Megan Hill joked that it was a “one owner, low miles” purchase. Despite its age, it has just under 40,000 miles on it and still has plenty of life, Hill said.

Ground was broken on the 8,000-square-foot facility in January. It will replace the 100-year-old two-story building at 115 E. Pecan St. that currently serves as Fire Station No. 3.  

During a construction update presented to members of the Gainesville City Council on Tuesday, April 2, Twiner said one of the reasons fire department administration, as well as city leaders, decided to build the new station was limited access to overhead doors. He said a lot of their engines had to be custom-built.  

“Being two-story it was a safety risk, as well,” Twiner said of the oldest city-owned building.

The department will soon have a state-of-the-art automatic door access solution that will help firefights get out of the station more quickly, safely, and efficiently.  

Liftmaster and Evansville garage door are seeing the project through. It’s valued at about $14,000.

"It's a Ford F-550. It's got a 400-gallon water tank with a 10-gallon Class A foam cell," said HCVFD Chief Mitchell Hooper. "It's a Kubota Diesel motor with a 300 GPM Hale pump. It's got a Scotty foam system. It can do up to 3 percent foam." The new truck, which looks like a large pickup truck or utility truck, will be safer for the volunteer firefighters, Hooper said. "It's got a cage to help protect the truck and a light bar," he said. "It's got a somewhat caged-in area to fight the wildfires from. It'll give our firefighters more protection. That way, they're not sitting on the bed and have a chance of falling off and getting hurt."