Bentonville (AR) Fire Department 137-foot aerial ladder quint. Cyclone II X cab and chassis; Cummins X15 600-hp engine; Hale Qmax 2,000-gpm pump.

Currently, the fire truck — which cost $903,000 — is being stored in Rouzerville for the coming weeks while necessary assessments are being made at the Potomac Street fire station.

The structural integrity of the flooring at the Potomac Street station to hold the weight of the new truck has been a concern. A structural assessment was conducted, and a final report is still to be released.

Since buildings can collapse, the fire department is required to stay a certain distance away from a burning building. A ladder pumper will allow the fire department to attack a fire from above. This could help the fire department lower the town’s insurance rating.

The department paid $10k for the ladder pumper, which has 52,000 miles on it which is by far a steal as typically ladder trucks can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"[Chewelah Firefighter and police officer] Dave Watts is extremely good at searching out extremely good fire units for extremely low prices,” Chewelah Fire Chief Dave Deveau said.

Nashville, Tennessee and San Bernardino, California’s departments have plans to retrofit their fire trucks with Captium, which will monitor the health of the vehicles’ numerous onboard systems and parts.

Produced by Lake Forest, Illinois-based manufacturing company IDEX Fire & Safety—better known for making the Jaws of Life firefighters use to cut people from car wrecks—the software platform is powered by Microsoft Azure Government and Windows 10 IoT Core. And starting July 1, Captium will be added to any custom chassis built by IDEX’s vehicle customers.