All it will take for Whitefield to acquire a new fire truck is $20,000 – plus a few repairs at the North Whitefield Volunteer Fire Dept. station to make it fit.
NWVFD Chief Tim Pellerin, who is also Lincoln County’s Emergency Management Agency director, said he “worked very hard” on applying to the federal Security Assistance to Firefighters Grants program for $165,000 to buy a new pumper truck on behalf of his fire station.
He welcomed the grant as a way “of bringing us up to modern times.”
Rep. Chellie Pingree’s office confirmed the award late last week.
It marks the first time a Whitefield fire department has been successful seeking a fire truck grant.
The town will be asked to supply a five percent match ($8750) and $11,000 for additional equipment the chief is requesting. That equipment includes ladders, a deck gun, lights and siren upgrades, drop chains, class A phone system, scene lighting, and hoses.
For Pellerin, a couple of wintertime incidents convinced him the truck is needed. On one occasion, while responding to a structure fire in neighboring Pittston, NWVFD firefighters piled into the semi-open cab of their 1984 custom E-1 pumper. Two of the four firefighters sat exposed to the elements and were so covered with snow, and so cold when they arrived on scene, they couldn’t operate their equipment to fight the fire, Pellerin said.
The new vehicle is a 2010 Class A fire pumper with 1000-gallon water tank, 1250-gal. water pump, and a fully enclosed four-door cab that seats five. It carries a 10-year warranty.
Town fire chief Jim Brann was pleased with the news. “I think we need it,” he said. Pellerin said, “We imagine if we didn’t get this (new vehicle), three or four years from now we’d be asking the town to invest in replacing our truck,” which has 88,000 miles on it and was acquired used in 2004 from Florida.
Firefighters will be safer in the 2010 pumper, service will be optimal, and most of all response time will be faster, Pellerin added.
The new pumper will also replace NWVFD’s 1976 utility truck.
In January, the board of selectmen and the budget committee discussed the grant application, questioning whether the truck was needed and who would own it – the fire association or the town. Brian Huntley commented that “in a lot of towns there are hard feelings because (ownership) wasn’t clear.”
Pellerin said Monday that NWVFD “doesn’t need its own fire truck. The asset will belong to the citizens of Whitefield. We’re going to gift the truck to the town,” because it will be used to respond to calls in North Whitefield, Kings Mills, Coopers Mills and all mutual aid communities, he said.
Emphasizing that the entire community will benefit, Pellerin said, “The question is not so much about ownership as who will benefit. I think we’ve lost some perspective somewhere about that. We need to keep focused on why we’re here, and it’s not for our own benefit and gain.”
In terms of the NWVFD station’s adequacy to house the new truck, “height-wise, it will just fit,” Pellerin said, although ice buildup in the winter will make for a tight squeeze out the door. “The problem is length,” he said, a limiting factor that makes another argument favoring construction of a new central station.
March town meeting voters will be asked to approve a first down payment for the proposed half-million-dollar building. (A public hearing is scheduled for Sat., March 6.) “There will never be a good time to build a new station, but some day the citizens are going to concede we need it,” Pellerin said.
Pellerin also reported the town’s application last summer for a $600,000 Dept. of Homeland Security fire station grant failed. Only one Maine fire department, in the York County town of Lyman, was awarded grant money to build a new fire station, he said.