Aerial truck will take department to new heights

The Clear Lake Fire Department welcomed a new 75-foot straight stick Sutphen Ladder truck Thursday, Nov. 16.   The new apparatus will become the CLFD’s first response vehicle to structure fires within city limits. The truck replaces a pumper “3303” purchased by Clear Lake in 1983 and currently in service. 

They expect the new ladder truck to serve Clear Lake for close to 30 years.

“The need for this type of apparatus is due to the constant change in home building materials, construction methods, and the contents of these dwellings that create hotter, faster burning fires,” explained CLFD Public Information Officer Billy Krefft.  “The need for a truck company and ladder company to aggressively attack a fire and ventilate its gasses, increases the need to get atop the roof quickly. Unfortunately with the materials of new roof construction and other types of building materials, collapse is a very real problem. The ladder insures the safety of the firemen, our city’s volunteers, to be able to cut the needed ventilation holes and fight fire aggressively to promote life-saving and property saving techniques that would otherwise, without this proven apparatus type, have additional challenges.”

The new apparatus also will serve as an engine company as the quintuple design allows for 500 gallons of water, a 2,000 gallon per minute fire pump, all of the recommended hand and power tools for a ladder company, as well as an engine company, plus water supply and fire attack hose to be carried on the truck. 

Aggressive training by the CLFD began Thursday evening, as tools and equipment were fit onto the new apparatus and eight-hour training classes were attended over the next three days by volunteers for maintenance, operation, and drill using the new capability of this truck.

Combined with the new fire station completed recently, the citizens of Clear Lake can also count on the City of Clear Lake to have a lower ISO rating that will ultimately save the taxpayer’s money as the factors calculated with overall fire department’s performance and ability, create a fundamentally better service to the community, added Krefft.