But here's something from 1979 that never went away: it's a three-axle Chevrolet tanker truck still called upon to help workers with the P.E.I. forestry department put out forest fires.

The '79 Chevy is the oldest of a fleet of six vehicles with an average age of 30. That's old enough to qualify as an antique under P.E.I.'s Highway Traffic Act.

The newest truck in P.E.I.'s forest-fire fleet is a 1991 model. The other four trucks date from the 1980s. Most of the vehicles are four-wheel drive tanker trucks, designed to be able to go places conventional fire trucks can't. According to officials, they're called upon an average of about 25 times a year.

Resources down

"When you have a very significant forest fire, the struggle comes when you have equipment that is broken down," said Dan MacAskill, who served as head of P.E.I.'s forest fire protection until retiring in 2013.

"You have a higher probability of breakdown in an older vehicle. So your resources you have available to fight a fire, they're simply down. You don't have them."

MacAskill says there were equipment breakdowns while he was still in the service, which required dispatching another piece of equipment from another part of the province.

He says he began advocating for new trucks in 1998, and he's still advocating in retirement, making a presentation this spring to the minister of finance during annual pre-budget consultations.

"Almost 50 per cent of the province is in woodland," he says, outlining the need for updated firefighting equipment.

Three firefighters were hurt in the crash. They are all expected to recover.

The new truck replaces a 1990 Grumman aerial ladder truck, nicknamed “Big John,” after 26 years of service.

Big John was named for former DeKalb Fire Department Capt. John Isom, who was influential in the design of the truck.

He died from a fire service-related illness before the truck was put into service, according to a news release from the fire department. The city bought Big John, a 102-foot ladder truck, for $473,000 in 1990, according to Daily Chronicle reports from the time.