Two new engines were recently added to the Papillion Fire Department’s fleet.

“It is kind of a tradition for new fire engines to be blessed before going into service,” the department says. “Recently the Papillion Fire Department add two new engines to its fleet. Here is what it looked like with the tradition being performed by the PFD chaplain.”

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A 1950 Chevrolet 6400 was purchased as the first fire truck for the then Winfield-Foley Rural Fire Department, and it served the department well for decades. By 1975, though, it was joined by a 1965 Dodge, a gasoline tanker filled with water, and a Jeep, reports lincolnnewsnow.com.

Twenty-plus years later and the apparatus was retired and housed in a rental lot. Rumor had it that an IL man could restore the truck, so it was sent on its way to the southern part of the state, according to the report. It was quickly forgotten, though.

Recently, with interests piqued, a current and retired official from the now Winfield-Foley Fire Protection District (WFFPD) began some detective work. After two years of sleuthing, the pair set out for Evansville (IL) to reclaim the apparatus, the report says.

The men found the truck—albeit with a locked back break and some flat tires, but some elbow grease got it onto a trailer.

The vintage truck returned to Winfield on May 31, and it now awaits restoration. The work is being done by Advanced Machine Repair, and the officials say that no tax money will be used for the project. It’s being restored strictly for showings, parades, and social functions.

The report notes that the work could be finished within a couple years. Read more about it here.

A 60-year-old Denver man—who lost his wife and stepdaughter last January when a city fire truck T-boned their vehicle—filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday over the crash, reports DenverPost.com.

Benjamin Hendry says the city and fire department failed to properly train crews on safe driving as well as operating the truck’s system for changing traffic lights during emergencies, the report says. The lawsuit claims, among other things, that Denver DOT and Infrastructure failed to properly maintain its traffic lights.

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Debra Williams, 53, and her daughter, Monica Charles, 38, were both killed in the crash at the intersection of East Speer Boulevard and Broadway on January 23. Hendry says the women had a green light when entering the intersection, the report says.

The impact flipped the car several times, the lawsuit says, which moved the vehicle 75-100 feet. A third person in the vehicle survived.

The apparatus was responding to an emergency call about smoke in a building, and the truck’s lights and sirens were on at the time, department officials say.

Read more about it here.

By Alan M. Petrillo

Mansfield Fire Department covers an area in North Texas that is rapidly growing with residential structures and multi-story buildings. The department currently operates out of five fire stations, staffed by 102 paid firefighters/paramedics/EMTs and is in the process of looking for a location for a sixth station. In order to provide the best fire protection for its growing community, Mansfield Fire had Spartan ER build two pumpers, a rear-mount aerial ladder quint, and a rear-mount aerial platform quint.

Kyle Wright, Mansfield captain and member of the apparatus committee, notes, “There are a lot of rooftops going up now in town, and we’re also getting a lot more multi-story apartment buildings. Right now, the maximum height we have is four stories, but we expect five- and six-story buildings in the near future, which is why we chose to diversify with both an aerial ladder and a platform.”

Brian Cudaback, apparatus sales director for Metro Fire Apparatus Specialists, who sold the rigs to Mansfield, says the department put out competitive bids for the apparatus and Metro Fire won the competition for Spartan ER. “Mansfield is the city where our shop is located,” he says, “where we do all the maintenance for their apparatus. They were looking to refresh their fleet and chose us to do that.”

Cudaback says the two pumpers are identical, built on a Spartan Metro Star LFD chassis and cab with seating for four firefighters and emergency medical services (EMS) cabinets, powered by a 450-horsepower (hp) Cummins L 9 diesel engine, and an Allison 3000 EVS automatic transmission, and carrying a Waterous CSU 1,500-gallon-per-minute (gpm) pump, and 500-gallon water tank. Wheelbase on the pumpers is 214 inches, overall length is 34 feet 8 inches, and overall height is 10 feet 6-1/2-inches.

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