By Sabina Bhasin
The Naples Daily News
ESTERO, Fla. — As brush fires burn with a vengeance this year and hurricane season approaches, the Estero Fire and Rescue district needs fuel at any cost.
“We have to respond to calls. Fuel is the most important thing other than personnel,” Fire Chief Scott Vanderbrook said. “We try to keep down any unnecessary movement of apparatus to cut down on fuel costs.”
Using ladder trucks, engines, brush fire trucks and other vehicles only when it’s absolutely necessary is one way the department is keeping costs down.
With $72,000 for fuel, nine trucks and five after-hour emergency vehicles, fuel costs aren’t a huge part of the overall operating budget. But it did increase about 2 percent from last year, Vanderbrook said.
The fuel budget also includes propane for emergency generators.
In the five emergency vehicles, the driver must account for miles driven and which emergencies he or she is responding to. This is also how the fire department monitors how much to allocate for fuel.
“We see gas prices go up like everyone else, but we’re still within budget for the year,” Vanderbrook said. “We monitor it year to year and if at the end of the year we’re short, we just have to allocate funds from somewhere else.”
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