The truck will give students hands-on experience of working with a real truck and learning the many aspects of fire service training from pump operations to the calculation of pump pressures and friction loss and ladder extensions.

“To have an actual working firetruck in this firehouse is a way to inspire future high school students to join the fire service,” Jarvis said. “Fire departments all across the country are really hurting for members. They are suffering because they don’t have the volunteers. In addition, the paid fire service is a great career for students who don’t necessarily want to go to college.”

“Having this apparatus here could actually change lives in the fact that it can open doors for students in fields they may have not considered,” he added.

A bill is being sponsored in both the Senate and the Assembly to allow fire departments to be reimbursed when they go out on EMS calls. When a hospital sends an ambulance it will be reimbursed for the cost through a patient’s personal health insurance. However, that’s not the case for fire departments.

Assemblyman Billy Jones of Plattsburgh said that the last thing anyone wants is for an EMS call to go unanswered.

“We’re not asking for anything more that’s not due to these fire departments,” Jones said.

With the number of volunteers in the state dropping, the money is needed even more. This  money refunded from the patients health insurance would also be used to pay for paid staff, equipment, training and more.

The tanker truck is essential for rural areas in Boonsboro that don’t have fire hydrants, Burton said. The new tanker truck would be able to carry 3,000 gallons of water, which is double what Boonsboro Fire and Rescue’s current tanker truck carries.

The need became all the more apparent last month when firefighters responded to a 911 call about a blaze at 2483 Charlemont Road. Below-freezing temperatures that day meant dry hydrants — pipes installed in natural water sources in rural areas for firefighter use — were frozen, rendering them useless. Trucks instead drew water from the Georgia-Pacific paper mill some eight miles away.

The union representing Culver City firefighters whose truck was hit around 8:30 a.m. on Interstate 405 in Culver City tweeted that the Tesla driver said he had been using Tesla’s Autopilot system, which performs automated driving tasks.

The California Highway Patrol and Culver City Fire Department confirmed the southbound Tesla had struck the fire truck, but could not immediately confirm whether the vehicle had been on Autopilot.

The fire truck had been parked in the left emergency lane and carpool lane, blocking off the scene of a previous accident, with a CHP vehicle behind it and to the side, said Culver City Fire Department battalion chief Ken Powell.

Both emergency vehicles had their lights flashing, Powell added