From Steel to Plastic: How a MA Firefighter Changed Everything

Tired of dealing with a rusted tank in a Lynnfield fire engine, two men came up with something better.

Former Firefighter Joe Lingel and Allan Burnham fabricated a tank made of plastic instead of the traditional steel, WCVB reported.

"He got to kind of thinking, wow this is like a really great idea. You don't need to clean it. It doesn't rust and corrode like all these things. I think there is a business in this," said Andrew Lingel, Joe's son.

United Plastics Fabricating makes tanks for fire department around the world in its 25,000-square-foot building in North Andover.

"I think that's what's sort of exciting, is that you're doing something that can save lives. That's really important," UPF president Andrew Lingel told a reporter. 

The invention became an industry leader and the business both retrofits existing trucks and makes tanks for new trucks rolling off the production line -- about 5,000 a year.

"There is water tanks in ladder trucks and then there are water tanks for brush units, for when there's brush fires, all the way up to these large 5,000-gallon airport crash trucks," he explained.