Firefighters added a new coat of paint a couple water tanks donated from the Early Fire Department.

Chief Will Boenicke said the truck will be used as a heavy brush truck in the battle against wildfires.

The department likes to replace its major pieces of equipment every 20 or 25 years, and the International heavy rescue truck was a 1996. Firefighters spent about a year researching trucks and features, debating new versus used, and going to see potential models.

They saw a similar model to the Rescue 1 truck with a Spartan chassis they ended up buying in Pittsburgh, and then headed in April to Indianapolis to see a demonstration model at the Fire Department Instructor Conference. The group brought it back to Hermitage for a tryout, and then decided to buy it.

Truck 112, the new heavy rescue vehicle, went in service Aug. 16 and has been on five or six calls. It has all the bells and whistles, from an LED light tower and a generator powered by the engine to a 30-gallon water tank for creating fire retardant foam, plus air packs embedded in the passenger seats, allowing firefighters to put them on while en route to a call.

The rescue carries much more equipment than the old model, Flynn said. The confined space equipment that had been spread over several vehicles is now in one place. The rapid intervention equipment is assembled and ready to go, instead of being disassembled for storage. The air cascade trailer that used to be pulled to a scene is gone, the equipment for filling air bottles nestled in the truck.

The truck seats six and carries warning cones, drinking water, cutters and saws, shovels, picks and pike poles, ropes, tarps, backboards, oil dry, tools and numerous other items for rescue. The department tries to keep up with advances in technology, new features and changing equipment ratings, he said. But, such an effort doesn’t come cheap.

The big rescue’s price tag: $488,000.

The department is paying for it with $100,000 from the Hermitage-Patagonia Relief Association, which is given money by the state from fire insurance premiums collected by insurance companies located outside of the state: $188,000 from the truck fund, which is built up by donations from local individuals, businesses and organizations; and a $200,000 loan, which will be paid from the truck fund.

The pumper will be driven from the area of Ingraham Terrace to Lake Drive East to Osborne Terrace to the firehouse at 5 Lake Drive West.

"We are asking the public to line the arrival route and cheer on the return of this prized antique," President Mark McGrath said.

The Mack Model 75-A pumper was bought in 1951, nine years after the fire department was established.

Company 5 previously operated with two, donated "hand-me-down" trucks before acquiring the pumper, McGrath said.

The pumper was in use from 1951-66 before being replaced by a larger truck, he added.

The department first started using the MSUs a few years ago, and last month expanded the program from two fire houses to three. They also extended the hours the units operate to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, up from 10 hours a day, four days a week. Aurora Fire Commander Mike Stanley, who oversees the department’s medical branch, said the trucks allow the department’s fire engines and ladder trucks to respond only to calls where that equipment is really needed, such as fires and traffic accidents.

With the MSU covering many of those medical calls — such as slip-and-falls, strokes, seizures and others — the engines can maintain quick response times.

Aurora City Councilman Bob LeGare has long advocated for the department to use the smaller trucks for medical calls, which make up more than two thirds of the department’s calls.

While the department largely sees the trucks as a way to keep response times down and save the fire engines for fires or other more-serious emergencies, LeGare said there is also a cost benefit to using the MSUs.

For now, Stanley said, the MSUs are deployed at three of the department’s busier stations — Station No. 1 near East 16th Avenue and Dayton Street, Station No. 4 near East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street and, now, Station No. 7 near East Iliff Avenue and Interstate 225.