Westfield Fire Chief Mary Regan talks about the department’s new aerial truck, ‘Tower One’, with Mike Wailgum of Westfield who participated in the Fire Explorers during his senior year at Westfield High School and is currently working to earn a B.S. degree in Fire Science at the University of New Haven. The truck was on display Thursday at an open house at City Hall, hours after it arrived in the city. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
WESTFIELD – The public got a glimpse of the Westfield Fire Department’s new aerial truck at a City Hall open house Thursday but the new $1.16 million truck will probably not be seen at any fires which might occur in the city this winter.
“We’re not going to rush it into service,” said Westfield Fire Chief Mary Regan. “We’ll keep the platform (truck) in service until enough folks get trained” on the new truck, ‘Tower One’.
She said that the tower truck is “a little bit different from the platform” because the turntable for the aerial equipment is mounted in the middle of the new truck while on the platform truck it is mounted at the rear.
She said the new truck is going to be “much more user friendly.”
She said that it that both aerial platforms extend the same distance, 95 feet, but the new truck’s working height may be a little greater because the tower truck is more maneuverable than the old truck and offers more options when setting up at a fire scene.
The department’s mechanic, Chris Bard, said that the Pierce Velocity truck was made in Appleton, Wisconsin, but he didn’t have to go there to get it.
The truck was purchased through a dealer, Minuteman Fire and Rescue, in Walpole and that’s where he took delivery Thursday.
The truck will next go to Hartford where radios will be installed and then it will be available for training.
Although the new truck is only one foot longer than the old one, Bard said “it’s different than what the guys are driving now” because, due to the location of the tower mount, there is less of the truck extending in front of the driver and more at the rear of the vehicle.
Manufacturing representatives are scheduled to be in the city to train firefighters during the second and third weeks of February and, after they complete their training, Regan said, the firefighters “will then do testing and working to get everybody certified.”
She said that the tower truck will probably start service in early March and efforts will begin to sell the platform truck.
Regan said that she expects to garner more for the 25-year-old platform truck from a direct sale to another department than would have been realized by trading it in.
She said that the last truck the department disposed of was sold via the Internet, on eBay, and said the city “actually did much better on it than we’d have done if we did it as a trade.”
