The Covington Fire Department is asking the city to buy a used fire truck to hold the department over while a brand new $2.3 million truck, which the city approved for purchase in February, is being manufactured.
Fire Chief Corey Deye made the ask at the Board of Commissioners meeting on March 3. The commissioners put the $310,000 used truck purchase on next week’s consent agenda, meaning it will likely pass.
The department hopes to purchase a specific 2009 tractor-drawn aerial truck made by Pierce Manufacturing, the same company that’s making the new truck, from the St. Matthews Fire Protection District out of Louisville. It will take about four years to make the new truck that was approved last month, and the truck Covington Fire hopes to replace dates back to 1994.
“Our 1994 [truck] requires about $30,000 currently just to return it to service,” Deye said. “The engine has already been rebuilt twice, and at 32-years-old, it has significant mechanical history. We are concerned whether it makes sense to continue investing in this apparatus of this age or not.”
The kind of truck the department hopes to buy is a tiller truck, the kind that pulls a ladder as a trailer and requires a second steering mechanism at the back of the ladder to help it negotiate street corners.
The department’s current main aerial ladder truck is Covington Fire Truck 7.
“7 is our Latonia truck,” Mayor Ron Washington said.
The Latonia truck is a 2004 model and has also become difficult to maintain. The truck purchased in February will serve as a replacement for Truck 7.
“Over the past two years alone, we spent approximately $90,000 to keep it operational,” Deye said. “If that trend continues, we can reasonably expect, over the next four years, to about spend around $180,000 to maintain it.”
If approved, the used truck purchase would come to serve as the department’s main aerial truck, allowing the 2004 truck to be put into reserve, thereby reducing its wear and tear and maintenance costs. The 1994 truck would need to be assessed by the department’s mechanics to determine what to do with it, Deye said, but he expected it would likely be sold.
“Can you explain why you use tiller trucks versus straight ladder?” asked Commissioner Tim Acri.
For one thing, Deye said, it would make training easier because truck types would be consistent throughout the department. Also, given the age of many of Covington’s streets, straight trucks that can’t make hinge turns sometimes struggle to get around.
“The big thing is, these ladder trucks carry ground ladders that can reach to a third-story window, where our pumpers can only reach to a second story,” said Deye.
Finally, tiller trucks, Deye said, tended to be cheaper to maintain than straight trucks because “there’s more mechanical things with it to go wrong.”
The Board of Commissioners will cast a final vote on the purchase next week.