The FEMA grant provided $165,000 to help fund the $170,000 truck that will assist Gaffney firefighters in fighting brush fires. The truck can also be used in inclement weather, since it's an all-wheel drive. The city of Gaffney paid about $5,000 to complete the purchase.

"This is a way for us to provide better protection of citizens in the city and outside the city," said Gaffney Fire Chief Jamie Caggiano.

The department provides coverage for areas within the city limits and a district outside the city.

Caggiano said the city has not had a brush truck in many years. He said the last one the city had fell into disrepair and became unsafe to operate.

"This completes our fleet, and gets us to where we need to be," he said.

Fire Chief David Hoback said they just started using bulletproof vests and helmets, the same type of equipment police use when they go in unsafe environments.

Hoback said he’s glad emergency management has created a plan to make sure first responders know how to handle themselves in stressful environments.

“In this day and time, unfortunately, we have to prepare our personnel to go into situations that are considered a warm zone where we may not know if there’s a secondary shooter or secondary threat,” Marci Stone, Roanoke City Emergency Management said.

“St. Albert, the way it’s growing with all the complexes going up right now, we will be more and more in need of a machine like this,” Bernd Gertzinger, deputy chief of logistics said.

Gertzinger was one of five members on the team who spent ten months custom designing and ordering the $1,468,000 piece of equipment. The ladder truck will be used specifically on buildings that are over 10 stories tall or have a large footprint, such as Servus Place or Costco.

The truck is a traditional aerial with plenty of safety features. It has spot chains for the tires in the winter time like all of the local trucks, it is advanced life support capable. This means the truck will have all of the paramedic equipment onboard.

The tower on the truck is 30 metres high and can pump out 8,000 litres per minute at the top of the truck.

“We need to thank city council on the support on this,” Gertzinger said. “The last aerial wasn’t working the way it should have so they helped us acquire the funds for us to purchase this ahead of schedule.”

The last aerial truck arrived in the city in 2009 and was plagued with a lofty amount of repairs and problems. The truck continued to have radiator and coolant issues, which required five repairs in 2015 and three repairs on 2016. The truck was sent up to Fort McMurray to battle the blazes this summer and functioned well, but upon return the truck was ou