City firefighters say more than $1 million is needed to replace an aging ladder truck that has stopped working on the way to calls, and extrication tools that have suffered “catastrophic failure” while on scene.
They hope that grant money from the 2020 Assistance to Firefighters Grant will help defray most of those costs.
City council members voted last week to approve grant applications totaling approximately $950,000 from AFG. The city’s match would be 5%, or approximately $49,000 for both projects.
“Our goal in the end of this, between the two grants, we’re applying for approximately $1 million worth of equipment from the federal government, with $50,000 out of pocket overall,” Capt. Steve Burkhead told the council during a special meeting Thursday.
Officials hope to receive grant approval by the fall.
Poplar Bluff has a 24-year-old ladder truck with a 55-foot aerial apparatus.
It is housed at the city’s busiest fire station, fire department officials said. It is used for all calls in station one’s district, and to back up the other two districts.
The grant would provide approximately $800,000 toward the cost of a 75-80-foot aerial apparatus ladder truck. The city would pay an additional $41,000.
The current truck has over 12,000 hours of pump run time, Burkhead said.
“The pumps have taken a beating over the years. These trucks are run hard over the years,” he said.
The cost is to replace the ladder truck with an “off the shelf” model.
The fire department has spent $23,000 in maintenance on the truck in recent years. It was out of service for more than 40 days in the past year.
“Actually, it has shut down multiplemultiple times on the way to calls,” Burkhead said. “(The company) has not been able to 100% identify what that problem is at this point.”
Once a new truck is ordered, it would take anywhere from 12 to 14 months for the city to receive the vehicle.
The fire department is also seeking funds to replace extrication tools, at a total cost of $140,000 to $150,000.
The grant money would also help the department add stabilization equipment.
The equipment the department currently has is about 15 years old, Burkhead said.
“We’ve had multiple issues with it,” he said. “We’ve had several catastrophic failures on scene. We’ve broken blades. We’ve broken collars. We actually had one set of spreaders that, for lack of a better term, exploded on their own, and that was under pressure.”
The equipment was in a compartment and split with the casing, Burkhead said.
“If those would have been in a firefighter’s hands at that point, we have no idea how bad they would have been injured when it split the casing and hydraulic pressure was behind it,” he said.
Repairs to the equipment would cost nearly as much as a new set, manufacturers have said.