He took the test to become a firefighter and was hired in 1989. Most of his career has been driving fire trucks.

Despite his former notoriety, Duerod says he’s able to fool fellow firefighters during pickup basketball games.

“When I first start playing with some of these young guys, they don’t know who I am, and I don’t say anything,” Duerod said. “Their friends will finally tell them, ‘Don’t you know who you’re playing with? He was in the NBA.’ ”

Duerod plays on the fire department’s basketball team.

“We won 11 championships,” he said. “The big rivalry was between us and the cops. They wanted to beat us so bad, but they couldn’t until we got old.”

Duerod, who lives in Westland with his wife of 34 years, Rosemary, said he’ll miss the camaraderie of the firehouse.

Its engines log a lot of mileage -- wear and tear that takes a toll on what's called "useful life."

They’re not cheap, and for the longest time, the city's finances were such that it couldn't afford many new ones.

“We've got several rigs that regularly run over 20 calls a day,” Arrollado noted in an interview Thursday. "Our call volume has increased from about 70,000 to 140,000 in the span of about 25 years. And we really haven't added many fire apparatus to address that call volume."

Ten a year, on average.

Before a Canadian production company changed its name to “Unit# F96” the truck went by the name “Ladder 5” for the Lexington Fire Department.

The department sold old Ladder 5 to Ian Thompson, owner of 911 Filmcars Inc., for about $22,000 in 2009.

Based in Vancouver, Canada, 911 Filmcars Inc. is a production company that provides emergency vehicles and consultants to movie sets. As a “vehicle wrangler,” Thompson “mixes and matches” his fleet and sometimes even firefighters who help make scenes believable.