Advanced tech for Galion FD

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

Galion Fire Department’s new pumper truck arrived last Thurs­day. Since then, F.D. per­son­nel have been prep­ping the truck with equip­ment and famil­iar­iz­ing them­selves with the new vehi­cle, which includes numer­ous safety and tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments that will make their job eas­ier and more effective.

Fire Chief Phil Jack­son and a group of fire­fight­ers picked up the truck last week from KME Kovatch, a sup­plier of cus­tomized spe­cialty vehi­cles in Penn­syl­va­nia. Jack­son said it was a long trip, but well worth it. Over­all, the truck is safer, more effi­cient and more versatile.

The last new vehi­cle the depart­ment received was a tanker truck in 2001. The last new pumper came in 1990, and because emer­gency vehi­cles have a 20 year life cycle, Jack­son said they were over­due for a new pumper. How­ever, it is actu­ally replac­ing another old truck, one of the vehi­cles sold by the city in 2009. Accord­ing to Jack­son, most com­mu­ni­ties of com­pa­ra­ble size have three to four trucks; Galion now has three to com­plete its fleet.

Some of the improve­ments that the 750-gallon pumper truck offers include LED light­ing that runs on the vehicle’s bat­tery instead of a gen­er­a­tor, which are brighter and can be turned on when the truck’s engine is not run­ning. Stor­age cab­i­nets are deeper than cab­i­nets on other trucks in the fleet and have spe­cial pull-out trays, mak­ing it faster and more con­ve­nient to access equipment.

The Jaws of Life are stored in a com­part­ment on the front of the truck, with a motor built in to the com­part­ment. In com­par­i­son, older trucks store the device in the back, so the tool, as well as the motor, must be car­ried to the scene of an acci­dent when needed.

In the cab, wider doors and extra space make it more com­fort­able and offer more func­tion­al­ity, such as stor­age for EMS equip­ment. There are also seat belt mon­i­tors, a back-up cam­era with sound alerts, Smart Wheel tech­nol­ogy so the dri­ver does not need to remove his hands from the steer­ing wheel (to oper­ate sirens and the like), and a Vehi­cle Data Recorder (sim­i­lar to the black box on an airplane).

“We want to make Galion proud of what it bought,” Jack­son added. He intends to orga­nize a “safety day” early next year so that peo­ple can view the truck and other new equip­ment pur­chased recently through FEMA grants.

A com­mit­tee of five peo­ple decided on the pur­chase of the truck, which cost $360,000, a pur­chase that had been included in the city’s bud­get recov­ery plan for sev­eral years. City Coun­cil approved the 10 year lease agree­ment dur­ing its Nov. 13 meeting.

The vehi­cle should be on the road by Thurs­day, Dec. 20. Jack­son said a ride in the truck had been offered to the col­or­ing con­test win­ners at Galion Pri­mary School, so he hopes to do that soon. Also, Guardian Graph­ics will be adding the department’s motto on the truck: “Serv­ing Galion and Polk Town­ship since 1842.”

Jack­son said the new vehi­cle will pos­i­tively effect the department’s ISO rat­ing. Galion was rated at a six, but Jack­son requested an updated rat­ing and it was bumped up to a five. He said it could pos­si­bly become a four as new train­ing is com­pleted and equip­ment is replaced through the FEMA grants that have been awarded to the depart­ment or have been applied for. Next, he intends to push for an aer­ial truck replace­ment, a piece of equip­ment that was also sold in 2009.