North Washington VFD introduces new fire truck to public
WASHINGTON TWP — More than four years of fundraising went into the North Washington Volunteer Fire Department’s new fire truck, which made its debut Friday.
The dual-purpose truck, called Tanker 30, was presented to the public at an open-house Friday evening at the town’s social hall, located next door to where the popular fire department rodeo is held annually.
The department received the new tanker earlier this week after fundraising efforts that began before COVID-19. For fire chief Bruce Confer, who has been with the department for 55 years, this was a personal milestone.
“We've been working on this truck for four years,” Confer said. “COVID put a stop to it for about a year because 90-95% of our funds here to this department are fundraising, and you couldn’t have any fundraising.”
The new tanker was the star of the show, with youngsters climbing into the cockpit to be the first to get a chance to drive it — or at least feel like they did. Neighboring fire and rescue departments came out to see the pride of North Washington’s fleet, including those from Petrolia, Eau Claire, Marion Township and West Sunbury.
The new tanker was custom-ordered and comes from Minnesota-based Midwest Fire. Every fire truck serves a different purpose, and according to assistant chief Ryan Enscoe, North Washington’s new tanker can serve two at the same time.
“It's going to be a tanker, but it will be used as an attack engine,” Enscoe said. “It has a 1,250-gallon-a-minute pump. It does have pre-connected fire hoses similar to an engine, so it can be a dual-purpose pumper/tanker.”
While North Washington currently has five fire trucks in its garage, that won’t be the case for long. The new tanker was brought in to replace an aging vehicle that dates back to 1989. The department intends to sell that one as soon as possible.
“It's just getting the point where it's getting hard to buy parts for it,” Confer said. “So we're going to put it out for bid to see who can take it off us.”
“It's nice to be able to have a large amount of water and a truck that's easy to drive,” Enscoe said. “It replaces a truck with a stick shift that we only had a few drivers for.”
Chief Confer estimates that it will get the department about two weeks to get trained on the ins and outs of the new tanker.
