HINGHAM, MA—The fire department's new, $1.3 million quint truck has been in the works for more than a year, and Fire Chief Steve Murphy says they're only a few weeks away from responding to calls in their state-of-the art apparatus.
The truck was delivered last month and firefighters have been in training for weeks to learn how to operate the new truck's elaborate ladder system, advanced hydraulics and dozens of special features. On Friday, a representative from the truck's manufacturer, Wisconsin-based Pierce Manufacturing, trained Hingham's squad on the truck's aerial features.
The current fire truck at Hingham's main street station is 20 years old, significantly smaller than the new truck and small even for the standards back in 1998. The old truck was custom built to fit in the station's then-undersized garage, Murphy said.
"I keep saying to people, this is a normal sized fire truck, even though it looks huge," Murphy said, gesturing to the new vehicle, which serves as both a ladder and engine truck.
The new truck costs $1.3 million, and the department is on the hook for outfitting it with tools and radios. Once it's fully equipped, the entire thing will have cost $1.5 million. Of that, $1 million came from a mitigation agreement with Avalon, a developer with two, 250+ unit apartment complexes in the shipyard.
"We knew we'd be hard-pressed to fight a fire in a building that big with the old truck," Murphy said. "And, this way, the town got a $1.5 million fire truck for $500,000.
The biggest upgrade with the new truck is what Murphy called the "tower," a bucket that can fit up to three people on the end of a 100-foot ladder. The old truck had just a ladder on top, leaving firefighters to saw limbs, cut holes in burning roofs and rescue people while clinging to the ladder.
"For the safety of our guys at the scene, the bucket makes a huge difference," Murphy said.
The new truck has two extra wheels, can be tilted up to five degrees in any direction and boasts a 500-gallon water tank, 200 gallons larger than the old truck. The new quint is 12 feet, 6 inches tall, 27 feet long and 88,000 pounds.
Hingham, Hanover and Abington are the only departments in the immediate area with a truck this advanced, Murphy said, but other towns will reap the benefits when Hingham is called for mutual aid responses.
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