PARMA, OH—To put it in perspective, the Parma Fire Department has a pumper fire engine that is older than many of the city’s firefighters. That’s why Parma Fire Chief Michael Lasky is requesting city council’s approval to replace 1990 and 1995 fire trucks.
“We’ve been in the process of planning, preparing and trying to make sure we have the available funds for this past year,” Lasky said. “Now, I’m asking council to pass the ordinance because each pumper takes a year to build.”
Using state pricing, the fire department hopes to buy two Sutphen pumper fire engines for $883,685.
“This past June, three ambulance lease payments expired,” Parma Mayor Tim DeGeeter said. “As those safety vehicles are now paid for, that allows the city to move forward on these trucks.
“According to national fire standards, fire trucks have a 25-year normal recommended life cycle under average use. So those trucks are way past that.”
The fire chief said the fire department, which will be paying for the new pumper fire engines out if its ambulance billing account and levy funds over the next 10 years, expects to have the new vehicles next fall.
Currently the city of Parma has six pumpers -- four in daily service, two as backups.
“Every couple of years we replace ambulances and depending on our backups we try to do fire trucks after 20 to 25 years,” Lasky said. “Right now, our backups are starting to show miles on them, and the frontline vehicles are starting to show miles as well.
“We refurbished a 1995 fire truck two years ago, which bought us some time, but now unfortunately it’s past its usefulness. We have two 1995s. One of the 1995s we’re getting rid of and the one we refurbished we’re keeping as a backup.”
While it hasn’t been determined where the new pumper fire engines will be stationed, Lasky guessed more than likely they’ll end up at fire station No. 1, No. 2 or No. 4 because No. 5 received a new pumper in 2015.
Invariably, fire engine design and technology has come a long way over the last three decades with the fire chief saying the new vehicles boast a more open cab with better storage for helmets, medical equipment and SCBA tanks.
“There’s improved insulation, reflectiveness, lights and efficiency for getting up and down the streets now,” Lasky said.
As for the older vehicles, the fire chief said they’ll be auctioned off with each being sold for $3,000 to $4,000.
“Just to replace the gas tank alone on an older truck is $10,000,” Lasky said. “So what would happen is we’d be throwing good money after bad at replacing something that at the end of the day we still have a 1990 or 1995 truck.”
———
©2019 The Plain Dealer, Cleveland
Visit The Plain Dealer, Cleveland at www.cleveland.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
