POWNAL – Pownal firefighters now have a $320,000 Pierce in service with a 2,500-gallon water tank.
After two to three weeks of training on the new apparatus, the department’s newest truck, a pumper/tanker based out of the town’s north fire station is ready to go, according to Fire Chief Jesse Peters.
It’s been a wait for the town. The money to purchase the truck was approved at the 2011 town meeting, but Pownal Administrative Assistant Scott Seaver said it generally takes about a year from the time it is ordered to build one the truck.
Seaver said the truck is a Pierce model and it was purchased for $320,000, which the town will be paying off through the next five years, he added.
Peters, whose job as chief is part time, said the new pumper/tanker truck would be an important tool for the 20-25 call firefighters servicing Pownal’s two fire stations. He said the training period was necessary because all of the equipment needed to be loaded onto it and the firefighters needed to be trained on how to operate it. While the new truck is similar to equipment the Pownal department has had in the past, there are enough differences to make training necessary, Peters said.
The new truck’s main use will not to serve as a primary fire engine, though with its pumping capacity and almost 2,500-gallon water tank, it could do so in a pinch.
“Its primary function will be water supply,” Peters said. “But it could actually function as an engine if it was the first truck on the scene.”
In actuality, the new pumper truck will fill a wide variety of roles at the scene of a fire, Peters said.
“It can pump water to the engine and it can dump water into a portable tank so another engine can supply the attack engine,” he said. “It will actually work as a water shuttle truck to shuttle water back and forth.”
The truck can fill its tank at some of the ponds and rivers in town, Peters said, but it could also go to a neighboring town with a mutual-aid agreement with Pownal that had hydrants and fill up there.
Peters said the department has mutual aid agreements with Falmouth, Yarmouth, Cumberland, North Yarmouth, Freeport, Gray, New Gloucester, Durham, Topsham and Brunswick.
Previously, the Pownal Fire Department had two tank trucks, but they couldn’t do the job that the new truck does.
“They had very limited pumping capacity,” Peters said. “They were basically water-haulers and that’s all they did.”
He said that while the new pumper/tanker truck holds the same amount of water as the town’s previous tanker, it could pump the water out faster, making it more efficient at the scene of a fire.
“This truck will be better than the one it’s replacing,” Peters said. “It’s actually a lot better.”
While the new truck will be a big boost to the department’s firefighting capacity, Peters said, it wouldn’t allow the department to stop relying on outside help to fight fires in town. He said the 2,500 gallons of water wouldn’t be enough to fight the average structure fire, so Pownal will continue to rely on mutual-aid agreements, adding that the town will also be sending its new truck out to help out in neighboring towns as well. “We’re going to be calling for tankers from neighboring communities,” he said.
Pownal’s newest fire truck, a tanker/pumper approved at last year’s town meeting, went into service last week.Send questions/comments to the editors.
