By David O’connor
The Intelligencer Journal/New Era
MANHEIM TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Manheim Township’s move to standardize its firefighting-vehicle fleet might be unique to Lancaster County, township leaders say, and will provide welcome improvements.
Last week, the township’s commissioners approved the purchase of four new pumper firetrucks to be shared by the township’s three fire stations, plus two smaller pickup-style squad trucks.
The pumpers, with a total cost of $2.25 million, are expected to arrive in the township by mid-September; the two squad trucks are expected to be in service by November.
The large trucks will replace three aging pumpers, some more than 20 years old, at the township’s three fire stations: Southern Manheim Township, Neffsville and Eden.
A new pumper will go to each of the stations, while the fourth will be alternated among the three to reduce use and extend the lives of the pumpers, officials said.
The four pumpers likely will be on display at Manheim Township Community Day, planned for Saturday, Sept. 10.
The purchases were part of a municipal lease-purchase agreement approved by the township commissioners in December.
Township fire Chief Rick Kane told the commissioners at their meeting Aug. 8 about the design of the four pumpers. They include standardized equipment so that “volunteers at any of the three stations can go to another station, ride a firetruck and know exactly how it works,” Kane said.
The current pumpers at Neffsville, Eden and Southern Manheim Township have apparatus that’s dissimilar, Kane noted, “so it’s hard to ask the volunteer driver to go from Neffsville over to Eden, for example, because it would take a huge time commitment on their part to learn how to drive those fire trucks.”
When vehicles are identical, drivers can move from station to station without problem, Kane said.
The new squad vehicles, with one going to Eden and the other to Southern, also are standard in cab and chassis, allowing drivers to switch from station to station.
The township’s volunteer personnel played a large part in the design and selection of the vehicles, and the plan to rotate the four pumpers among the three stations gives fire officials a better chance of getting a full 15-year cycle out of the vehicles “and not running them into the ground,” Kane said.
“The volunteers participated in this process 100 percent from start to finish, and that made this extremely easy,” the chief said.
The volunteers on the selection committee even recommended — and won approval from a majority of the three companies’ volunteers - for a transition to a new standard color for the fleet, which will be blue and white.
The new vehicles were paid for with funds from Manheim Township’s fire tax, now in its second full year of collection.
The $1.3 million a year raised from the 0.43-mill tax, the second such levy in the county, is used solely by the three fire stations.
Other communities, including East Hempfield Township, are considering a similar fire tax for 2012.
Copyright 2011 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.