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.

Despite being temporarily trapped in the vehicle, the driver of the sedan was eventually extricated and taken to a local trauma center following the wreck, which happened around 3:30 a.m. in the area of Capitol Expressway and Tuers Road, San Jose Fire Department Deputy Chief Reggie Williams said. The firefighter who was almost struck managed to dive out of the way before the car whizzed by.

Fire crews working at the scene of a vegetation fire parked the fire truck in the far right lane of the roadway, Williams said. The firefighter who was nearly hit was resetting cones that had been knocked over by other drivers when they spotted the car driving at them. The firefighter leaped to safety as the sedan whizzed by and crashed into the truck.

Thomas Reardon, 32, of 158 Larkin Pond Road, South Kingstown, R.I., was arrested Thursday by police in that town at the request of Westport police.

Reardon was sought after investigators were told he accepted over $15,000 to repair a pumper truck. He later returned the truck with the defective area disguised and no repairs done. The truck had been damaged during an August 2017 emergency call.

Reardon had charged $10,478 to repair and overhaul the kit, $375 in freight costs and $4,400 in labor costs after the the fire department sought to repair a water leak. After the truck was returned, fire department personnel noticed the truck was leaking worse. In December, Reardon came to the fire station to view the pumper and admitted he had not repaired the truck at all. Fire personnel noticed he had allegedly covered the area with fresh spray paint to disguise visible rusty bolts on the affected area.