Fire Department Gets New Truck, Gives Old One to Public Works Department

By Ruth Melville

The Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department has recently purchased a new 2023 Ford F-350 brush truck, with a 225-gallon water tank and a 6-gallon fire-fighting foam cell. This smaller truck is good for handling brush fires and accessing difficult to reach spots. It can do a 360-degree turn, and its high clearance means it can go over rougher, dirt roads. These features make it particularly useful for responding to situations where trees and wires are down, and its large-size pump and 1,000 feet of forestry hose mean it is well-equipped for fighting forest fires.

The new truck went into service on Jan. 1 and by the middle of the month it had already responded to several calls. In one case, it was used to carry the ambulance crew up an unplowed driveway to reach the patient’s house and bring them down to the waiting ambulance.

Meanwhile, the truck that was replaced—a 20-year-old brush truck, worth about $20,000—was given to the Public Works Department to be turned into a plow truck. Refurbishing the old vehicle rather than buying a new one saved the town about $145,000.

Purchase of the new brush truck was made possible by a private donation from Tony Kiser. Trucks similar to this one can cost as much as $250,000, but the NVFD was able to save about half of that by designing the truck in-house. A committee of volunteers, under the direction of 2nd Assistant Fire Chief Steve Hutchins, spent countless hours over many months working on every aspect of the design, researching requirements such as the size of the chassis, engine size, suspension, and what tasks the truck would be required to perform. Fortunately, the NVFD has enough people with the relevant expertise and experience to carry out this work.

In a recent conversation with Norfolk Now, several members of the department, including Fire Chief Brian Hutchins, 1st Assistant Fire Chief Matt Ludwig and President Paul Padua, talked about the new truck and some other major projects on their to-do list.

The NVFD has five-year plan to tackle several other big projects, one goal at a time. For one, the department needs replace their Air-Paks (SCBAs, or Self-Contained Breathing Apparatuses), ideally without using tax dollars. The NVFD is working with the Winsted fire department to try to get a federal grant through the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, just as they did several years ago to get the radios for both departments.

The NVFD also needs to replace a 1995 engine. According National Fire Protection Agency standards, the lifetime of such a truck is 30 years; after that, it loses its Class A status. It will cost about $1 million to replace the engine, and the department is hoping to raise a quarter of that.

The firefighters said that their annual appeal helps with ordinary operations, and their budget from the town covers items like lights, diesel fuel, heating oil, and hose and ladder testing. But for bigger projects, like the new truck, they try to to find private donations to help out.

They are also looking for more people to join the department—in any capacity, whether helping with administration, fighting fires or serving on one of the department’s committees.