Sturtevant trustees will address whether or not to pay Mount Pleasant $17,000 for 2016 South Shore Fire Department equipment purchases a Sturtevant committee late last month voted against.

Trustees Chris Larsen and Chris Wright on Facebook are urging residents to attend Tuesday's board meeting to voice their concern over the SSFD item on the agenda they say was placed there by thwarting both village ordinance and Roberts' Rules of Order.

"Call to Action: A member of the board is trying to go against the vote of the Finance Committee to deny giving Mount Pleasant $17,000 for purchase they chose to make without Sturtevant's approval. This trustee ran to the attorney with your tax dollars to pay for their time to find a loophole to get his way. It was placed on the agenda for this Tuesday when they knew I had a family conflict that prevented me from attending. Your voice needs to be heard call the board and tell them to vote no or go to the meeting Tuesday at 6:00 PM and tell them no," Wright's post reads.

In a nutshell, Sturtevant contracts with Mount Pleasant for fire and rescue services through South Shore Fire Department. The terms of the contract say that both villages need to approve fire department purchases, and if Sturtevant does not approve any item but Mount Pleasant funds the purchase anyway, then Mount Pleasant pays for whatever that item may be.

A formula for determining how much each village pays into South Shore puts Sturtevant's responsibility for about 18 percent.

At issue is a list of SSFD items for 2016 that totaled $1.2 million, making Sturtevant's portion around $68,000. Sturtevant only approved $50,000 for those purchases, leaving a balance of about $17,000 Mount Pleasant picked up because that village board decided to go ahead with the entire list as presented.

After SC Johnson announced the company was donating $324,000 to South Shore, thereby reducing the financial responsibility for both villages in 2016 for certain improvement purchases, Mount Pleasant officials asked Sturtevant to make up the $17,000.

For more information, view racinecountyeye.com

Plymouth officials welcomed the Northville City Fire Department's new aerial bucket truck.

The $807,423 truck, a 2015 Rosenbauer Cobra with a boom that extends up to 101 feet, was a joint purchase between the cities of Plymouth and Northville. The NCFD has been providing firefighting and emergency medical service in Plymouth since the beginning of 2012.

The truck, a demonstrator model, replaces a 35-year-old aerial truck. It will be based in Plymouth, but City Manager Paul Sincock said firefighters will be training on it in both communities.

The truck came from the Rosenbauer facility in South Dakota, where some equipment extras included in the purchase had been added and it had been detailed and inspected.

For more information, view hometownlife.com

SEE PHOTOS OF THIS RIG >>

By Alan M. Petrillo

The Franklin Park Volunteer Fire Company No. 1, in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, needed to replace a 25-year-old pumper-tanker and turned to 4 Guys Fire Trucks to put together the custom pumper-tanker it required. Franklin Park's fire district covers about five miles of Interstate 79 and another five miles of Interstate 279, which Gary Scheller, the company’s chief, terms the largest accident and hazmat-potential area for the department.

Gary Scheller, Franklin Park's chief, says that the interstates are the reason for the large size pump and water tank on the fire company's previous and its now-current 4 Guys pumper-tanker. "We need to be self-sufficient out there," Scheller says. "We want to be sure our firefighters have the tools and the equipment they need to handle any situation they are faced with on accident or fire scenes."

In addition to the interstates, Franklin Park's fire protection area is made up of about ¾ residential, including many planned housing and townhouse communities, as well as a series of restaurants, two strip malls, several office buildings (some up to six stories), a nursing home, two schools, and eight churches."The district is 15 miles north of Pittsburg, covers 14 square miles with a population of about 15,000, and has 60 volunteers with 30 active firefighters working out of two stations.

"With our new pumper-tanker, we reduced the cab to seat six firefighters instead of ten like on our prior pumper-tanker," Scheller says, "but kept the pump and tank size the same. We added two eight-inch dump valves on the new truck, one each in between the rear wheels because we didn't have them on the earlier truck and found there were times when we would have liked to have them to make the truck more versatile."

Ron Vezzani, regional sales manager for 4 Guys Fire Trucks, says 4 Guys built the pumper-tanker on a Spartan Gladiator LFD cab and chassis with a Cummins ISX-12 500-hp engine and an Allison 4000 EVS automatic transmission. The rig carries a Hale QMAX-175 1,750-gpm pump, a UPF 1,500-gallon water tank, a 25-gallon integral Class A foam tank, and a Hypo FoamPro 3012 foam system.

Wheelbase on the rig is 244 inches; overall length is 38 feet, seven inches; overall height is 10 feet, four inches; front axle is rated at 23,000 pounds and the rear axle at 40,000 pounds; and its GVWR is 60,000 pounds. Scheller points out that the vehicle only weighs 56,000 pounds, even though the GVWR is much higher. "We wanted to have a reserve capacity for weight on this truck," he says.

Scheller notes that the top-mount pump was new to Franklin Park. "But because we are on the interstates so much, we wanted to get the pump operator up off the road and out of harm's way," he s

Five firefighters were taken to the hospital after their fire truck caught fire in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Saturday night, reports NBC Philadelphia.

Members of the Gladwyne Fire Company were heading back from a non-fire call shortly before 7:30 p.m. on the 600 block of Spring Mill Road when their fire truck's engine suddenly caught fire. The firefighters quickly got out of the vehicle and other crews responded to the scene.

The responding crews were able to place the fire under control shortly before 8 p.m.

Five firefighters were hospitalized though none of them were seriously hurt. Spring Mill Road was closed at the scene of the fire as crews worked to tow away the truck. Officials are currently investigating the cause.

For more information, view nbcphiladelphia.com