City approves purchase of aerial fire truck

The City of Clear Lake City Council has approved the acquisition for a new 75-foot straight stick Sutphen ladder truck for the Clear Lake Fire Department and the people of the City of Clear Lake.

    The new apparatus, similar to the one pictured with this story, will become the CLFD’s first response vehicle to structure

fires within city limits.

    The bid accepted by the City Council at its March 19 meeting for the new fire truck is $682,676.10.
    The truck is expected to arrive in late December and it will enter service shortly after.  The new fire truck will replace a pumper “3303” purchased by Clear Lake in 1983 and currently in service.  That truck will be sold to claim some of the costs associated with the new apparatus.
    “We expect the new ladder truck to serve us for close to 30 years,” said CLFD Public Information Officer Billy Krefft.
    “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 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 specialized and- Read More Via e-Edition