A new fire truck is coming. Please donate.

If you’ve been following along with our Facebook page and the winter
newsletter you may have seen that we’ve been working on replacing Engine
86, the older truck with Garfield painted on the side. The current Engine
86 is 38 years old and while we knew we would need to replace it soon; our
timeline was sped up due to a severe rust problem.

The plan was that Engine 83, the new wildland truck we got couple of years
ago with the help of a grant combined with donations, would pay to replace
Engine 86 with revenue earned from wildland fire assignments outside the
area. That plan was working! We were about ¾ of the way to where we
thought we’d need to be financially to replace Engine 86 when we got the
diagnosis about the rust problem.

We had firefighters and board members scouring the internet looking for a
replacement for Engine 86 and after looking at five or six vehicles we
found exactly the right truck for us from the Goodwill Fire Company in
Jacobus, PA.

The new Engine 86 is a 2004 International that looks a lot like Engine 83
except there are ladders mounted on the passenger side of the vehicle, it
has a larger pump than Engine 83 and it holds more water than 83. We must
have a vehicle with Engine 86’s capabilities and equipment for ISO
purposes. Engine 83 is the money maker and Engine 86, the old one and the
new one, maintains our insurance rating.

The new 86 was Goodwill’s secondary Engine so the miles are low as are
the hours on the pump. We sent two certified fire mechanics to perform an
onsite inspection before agreeing to buy the truck and they were very
impressed with how well maintained the truck was and how clean it was.

There are some non-urgent fixes that will need to be done over the next few
months but in the short term, it will need new tires, east coast
departments have different standards for tire replacement than we do in our
drier climate, and we will need to swap out the seats. The latest thinking
is that SCBA seats where the airpacks snap into the seat for storage can
carry carcinogens so replacing the seats is a matter of firefighter safety.
The other near-term project will be to paint the truck, it is currently
bright yellow. Small town Pennsylvania has a system where each department
has its own color for apparatus which we don’t employ here. Due to the
holidays, the expectation is that the truck will arrive in Walker after the
New Year.

We owe a big thanks to the community for helping us get over the line
financially to complete the purchase. As I mentioned, we had to move our
timetable up by about a year.

Please let me know any questions.

Thank you.
Roger Nusbaum
Fire Chief
Walker Fire Protection Association