HOPE Technik recently unveiled LF5G at the Home Team Festival 2015 in Singapore, and although it may look like a car, it is designed to save lives in hard-to reach fire and rescue emergencies.

The first Red Rhino was released in 2000, and each new version has improved operational capabilities

Last year’s model, LF4G, took the improvements further with ergonomic enhancements.

All five models have an Isuzu D-Max pickup as the base, painted fire engine red and are developed for the Singapore Civil Defense Force (SCDF).

‘HOPE Technik firmly believes that form and function are equally important,’ Colin Choo, the company's artistic manager told Gizmag.

‘A firefighter's helmet is both symbolically and physically essential to the firefighter.

‘Drawing inspiration from the helmet, we re-imagined the front of the LF5G.’

‘The vehicle is given the determined expression of a firefighter on mission before the aesthetic is concluded with an extracted essence of the helmet.’

The hood line of the LF5G was lowered to improve visibility and a 4130 chromoly steel roll cage was added to protect occupants.

HOPE Technik recently unveiled LF5G at the Home Team Festival 2015 in Singapore, and although it may look like a car, it is designed to save lives in hard-to reach fire and rescue emergencies.

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An Alna fire truck may get a new body and a new use for yard work, the truck's winning bidder, a Westbrook man said.

"Nothing very exciting," Paul Cloutier said about his plans for the truck he found on Craigslist. Cloutier's $4,300 bid was the highest of 10 that Alna selectmen unsealed at their meeting earlier in the evening. No bidders attended.

The truck's low mileage led him to bid on it, Cloutier said. He might put a stake body on it and use it around the yard, he said.

Alna's new, nearly $300,000 fire truck arrived in June. It replaced the GMC.

Before selectmen opened the bids, First Selectman David Abbott announced that he didn't expect the board to make a decision that night. Selectmen thought they might see bids from fire departments, possibly in Washington County, where another piece of fire department equipment went earlier this year. The defibrillator, no longer needed after the First Responders program ended, went to Pleasant River Ambulance Service.

Third Selectman Doug Baston had informed Washington County that the GMC was up for bid.

Selectmen have said they were open to passing up the highest bid if a lower one came from a Washington County fire department, or any other that needed a fire truck. But, except for Starks Fire Chief Steve Rackliff, who bid $1,251, no bidders cited ties to fire departments. And selectmen said they couldn't tell from Rackliff's bid if he wanted the truck for his local department or for his own use.

In a telephone interview Dec. 3, Rackliff said that, had his bid won, he had planned to offer his department the truck as a donation. The department has a pumper truck; a former ambulance as a utility vehicle; and a recent boost in membership from three to 17. "So I thought we could use another truck," he said. He's been looking on Craigslist for a good deal, and will continue to.

"I was trying to buy that cheap," Rackliff said about the Alna truck. "I figured ... if it worked out, it would be great; if not, we'll try again somewhere else."

Alna officials planned to contact Cloutier to arrange for him to pay for and pick up the truck. It should leave the fire station property before winter, Fire Chief Mike Trask said.

The top bid was higher than he thought it might be, although the tires alone are worth more than that, Trask said.

A prior Craigslist ad resulted in another former Alna Fire Department truck, a 1972 Dodge Power Wagon, going for $10,071 to Sugarloaf Ambulance Rescue Vehicles. Ron Morin, the Wilton business' owner, used the truck's chassis on a replica of the rescue truck from the 1970s television show, "Emergency." The sale money went to the Alna Fire Department's nonprofit arm that had gotten the Power Wagon for the department.

For more information, view www.wiscassetnewspaper.com

A new mixed-use development would supplant City Hall's parking lot with a fire station addition, residential units, commercial space and a parking ramp, while preserving a historic church, according to new plans filed with the city of Iowa City.

Allen Homes, a local development company that signed a purchase agreement for the Unitarian Universalist Society's property earlier this year, is working with the city on the project, which would transform a site on the edge of downtown bordered by Gilbert Street, Iowa Avenue, Van Buren Street and City Hall.

According to a rezoning application filed recently by the developer for the nearly one-acre property, the project would be built atop the existing city-owned surface parking lot, as well as the property along Gilbert Street where the church's office annex once stood.

"Open parking lots aren't necessarily the best use of land near the downtown, so this would put a productive use in that location and help preserve the historic church building," said Bob Miklo, senior planner for the city.

The fate of the former 108-year-old church has been in limbo this past year after the congregation voted to sell its longtime home and build a new facility in northwest Coralville. While the more modern annex to the church was demolished earlier this year, the original sanctuary was left standing at 10 S. Gilbert St. and would remain so under the proposed plans.

Plans show the fire station addition being built where the church annex once stood along Gilbert Street, between the existing fire station and the original church. Three stories of commercial space would be housed above the fire department.

The building would also feature 25 townhouses lining Iowa Avenue and Van Buren Street, surrounding a multistory parking ramp with 202 spaces that would stand in the center of the development. An additional 24 apartment units would be built above a portion of the parking structure.

The current parking lot, which is used by police cruisers and other city fleet vehicles, must be rezoned from public property to Central Business Support Zone to allow for the development. Iowa City's Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to take up the developer's application at meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

For more information, view www.press-citizen.com

Fire Engineering Editor in Chief Bobby Halton is in Washington, D.C., attending a demonstration by 9/11 firefighters and police seeking extension of the Zadroga Act, which provides health care for those responders suffering deleterious effects of working at Ground Zero in the wake of the attacks.

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