There will be a warrant article at Town Meeting to raise money for a one-ton firefighting truck. As Forest Fire Warden, I’ve studied this issue a lot over the past couple of years, and there’s a lot you should know before you make up your mind. It can’t all fit in the warrant article, so here’s some of the background information I think you’ll want to know.
The first question I always get is, “Why isn’t the Fire Department proposing this?” In New Hampshire, forest fire wardens and their teams don’t fall under the local fire departments. Instead, they’re under the state Division of Forests and Lands.
But here’s the kicker – forest fire wardens don’t get a budget from the state. Instead, forest fires are a line item on the Town budget, so every year Town Meeting votes on the money we’ll need for the equipment, training, and labor to fight woods fires for the coming year.
So the Town has paid for most of the forestry equipment we use, though we purchased our Gator utility vehicle with a grant, and the East Andover Fire Department bought us the trailer we use for all our firefighting equipment.
The Missing Piece
What we’re missing is a way to pull our equipment trailer into the woods when there’s a fire. Currently, we use our personal vehicles, which is asking a lot of our team. And it raises some tough issues about liability and insurance.
The warrant at Town Meeting would solve this problem. We’re proposing a one-ton Ford F-550 flatbed. It is very much like the Town’s new truck, which our Road Agent is very happy with and would buy again. I believe that is the smallest truck that’s adequate to tow our equipment trailer where it needs to go.
On the flatbed of the truck would be a “skid unit” which would turn it into a firefighting truck. Salisbury has a skid unit, and they say it works well for them. I’ve done a lot of research and think the FireLite FDHP-303-200 unit would serve us well.
I considered a lot of other possibilities before recommending this truck and this skid unit. For example, Boscawen uses a pick-up truck, but I think it’s just not adequate for Andover’s tougher terrain.
Wilmot built their own skid unit, and they saved some money by doing it, but not much. It took a lot of donated time to do it, and of course there’s no warranty on the rig as a whole. And what about liability issues if it were to fail? I don’t think we want to go that way.
I looked at bigger trucks and bigger skid units, but they’re more than we need. I think the one-ton with the FireLite skid unit is the right size for us.
The warrant article will be for about $76,800 for the truck, the skid unit, lighting, radios, and lettering. The details about how the deal will be structured – like will the warrant article propose a lease or not? – are still being worked out. All those details should be in the next issue of the Beacon.
We’ve put a lot of thought into this proposal, and we think it’s the right way to go. I hope you’ll vote in favor of the warrant article at Town Meeting.