By Arlene Martinez
Ventura County Star
VENTURA, Calif. — Ventura Fire Chief Kevin Rennie gets nervous when the department’s only firetruck with a 100foot aerial ladder is out of commission.
He wonders whether this time the parts won’t be available on the 17-year-old model or whether it will need more and more work as it gets on in years.
On Monday, Rennie received City Council approval to buy a new $1 million firetruck with a 100-foot ladder. The truck gives the Ventura City Fire Department two trucks with that kind of reach, Rennie said.
That is “something we haven’t had in a long time,” he said.
The department has held off on replacing the vehicle for two years because of budget constraints, but, “We don’t feel we can hold off again,” Rennie said.
Fire rescue trucks average a “front-line” life span of 15 years, and spend another 15 years as a reserve. The current reserve truck, bought in 1991, doesn’t have a ladder of similar length.
The 1995 truck will move into reserve status as soon as the new truck arrives this year.
After studying several options, fire officials settled on Pierce Manufacturing Inc. to provide the truck for reasons including cost, warranties and overnight availability of parts.
The truck can maneuver through narrow streets, includes tools for extrication and enables rescues down ditches or embankments.
It also will reduce emis sions by 15 percent and increase gas efficiency by 10 percent compared with the present aerial-ladder truck, officials said.
The department considered refurbishing the truck but found doing so would be expensive and difficult because so many parts are no longer made or are hard to track down, Rennie said. Councilman Brian Brennan asked the Fire Department to look into selling the truck to developing nations or selling the parts in an online clearinghouse such as eBay.
“It might be worth more in parts,” he said.
Money from the department’s Fire Apparatus Replacement Fund will pay for the truck.
During the 2012-13 fiscal year, the department plans to buy an urban search-and-rescue truck as well as a fire engine.
The following year, it plans to buy another fire engine and then not buy another vehicle for four years.
The department will replenish the account by about $350,000 per year during the next three years. The money is set aside in the department’s operating budget.
Copyright 2012 Ventura County Star