Commission approves purchase of used tender fire truck

MOUND CITY – The Linn County Commissioners heard weekly reports from the emergency services, fire and ambulance, on Monday, June 17.

Fire Chief and Emergency Services Director Randy Hegwald reported that there had been five calls for the fire department the past week resulting in 271 for the year to date. Hegwald said none of the calls this week were for fires but instead for car wrecks or medical emergencies.

Hegwald told the commissioners that he had gone Bayport, Minn., to look at the tender truck which he said was in phenomenal condition for a 2001. He said the truck had some features that would be beneficial to Linn County.

In addition to not having the diesel exhaust fuel (DEF) system, which sometimes has problems when a vehicle is not run frequently, the tender has a jet dump feature which allows the truck to empty 2,000 gallons of water out in about 30 seconds. This feature alone will give the county a couple of Insurance Services Office (ISO) points, he said. None of the other trucks in the county have this feature. 

Hegwald said that this would probably allow the residents in the county that are five miles outside of city limits to drop their ISO rating from a 10 to a nine.  ISO ratings are number one is best and 10 is the worst. Cities and areas within five miles of the cities in Linn County are rated at a five.

Hegwald said that this truck would most likely replace the oldest truck in the county which is at Blue Mound. 

Hegwald told the commissioners that several other fire departments were going to look at this truck this week and if the county wanted to hold it, he would need to put down $7,500 to hold it. The total price for the truck will be $150,000 and will come from the special equipment fund which has $800,000 in it.

According to Hegwald, new trucks like this run close to $1 million.

The commissioners approved the purchase of this truck for $150,000 and approved getting the $7,500 down payment to the Bayport, Minn., fire department as quickly as possible.

Hegwald reported to the commissioner that the Kansas Division of Emergency Management (KDEM)would be down to look at flood damage in the county that morning so that they could collect data to send to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).