While pumps and valves in several fire trucks froze up during a fire that took one life on Crummett Mountain Road Jan. 24, all but one of those trucks has been repaired and is back in operation, according to Somerville Fire Chief Mike Dostie.
“Chelsea, Winsdor, Jefferson, Whitefield. They all froze up,” Dostie said Feb. 7. He said one of Somerville’s five fire trucks was permanently damaged by the freezing conditions.
“It pulled one of the valves out of the pump and the truck is of a vintage that they can’t get parts,” he said. He said the problem came after the tanks were emptied of their first load of water.
“We emptied the truck,” he said. “We waited and, when we went to re-attack, the nozzle was frozen solid.” He said that lack of water flow gave ice time to form in the nozzle. A truck from Windsor took over the job and, with a Jefferson tanker hooked to that truck, the effort continued.
Unfortunately, that truck’s pump froze on the trip to the hydrant when it went to refill, he said.
“They changed trucks three times before they found one that would draft out of that hydrant,” Dostie said. “That’s when I started paging departments out of our mutual aid area to come with tankers to give us water.” He said those additional trucks, from Pittston, China, and Waldoboro, were able to dump off, but after the two mile trip to refill, “they couldn’t hold their valves open.”
Dostie said the situation was aggravated by ice build-up in 4-inch hoses that restricted the flow from the 6-inch hydrant.
“We were right on top of the mountain,” he said. “The wind chill must have been 25 or 30 below. That’s what made the fire so hard to fight.”
“Really new pumpers have heated pump compartments,” Dostie said. “The trucks we have, none of them are new enough to have that.”
“We had a fire critique afterward,” he said. “We’ve operated in temperatures like this before.” He said the problem was the distance from the water supply. “We tried several brooks and they were all too low.”
Some of the other trucks had cracked valves, which have since been replaced.
“We’re out there actively looking to see what we can find,” Dostie said of the search for a replacement. “We’ve got a couple of good leads.” He said the Maine Fire Chiefs’ Association is helping in the search.
“Of course, funding will be the big thing for us,” Dostie said. He said the department was seeking a used truck.
“We found one in Chelsea that’s just right, but the truck Chelsea is waiting for hasn’t gone into production.” He said manufacturers are busy replacing equipment damaged last October by Hurricane Sandy.
Dostie said Somerville would be well covered in the event of another fire because of mutual aid agreements with nearby towns.
“We plan well together and work well together,” he said. “Jefferson and Whitefield are real close to that end of town.” He said the north end has two trucks that are up and fully operating and Somerville pages for mutual aid right away for calls on the southern end of town.
