Cornwall Fire Department welcomes new truck

CORNWALL — The new fire truck is here, and it has arrived ahead of schedule.

Cornwall Fire Department volunteers were busy last week preparing the new pumper to be put into service at the West Cornwall Firehouse.

The final cost was about $330,000. The pumper was built by KME Fire Apparatus; the Pennsylvania company’s low bid was approved last summer. At the recommendation of a fire department committee that worked for six months on specifications, the cost included $15,000 in new hoses and ladders. Often, such equipment is recycled from an old truck to a new one. But in this case, the hoses on the 20-year-old pumper currently in use had already been recycled from the pumper before that. Reliability was a concern, so the gear was replaced.

The new truck is a stock model on an International chassis, with a custom body. It has an aggressive-looking grill with lots of chrome. Luckily, there are plenty of junior department members around to keep it polished.

It has top-mount pump controls, and includes a deck gun and injection foam system. A top mount puts the operator on a platform directly behind the cab, a safer spot where he or she can better observe a fire scene.

It also has something not seen before on fire trucks around here: a license plate. The state is now requiring rolling fire equipment to be registered.

Truck 2-0 will make its debut — barring any emergencies — in Monday’s Memorial Day parade.

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