Towamensing Township's board of supervisors approved a loan for the volunteer fire company to procure a new truck at Thursday night's meeting.

After the department had found a deal on a 2007 heavy rescue truck in Alabama, several members of the company went down to investigate the vehicle."We looked it over, inspected it with a fine-toothed comb," Fire Chief Jeremy Haydt said. "It was everything that the pictures showed on the dealer website. It was everything that we were hoping."Haydt said the Pierce-Saber truck was built for a station in Kodiak Island, Alaska, and was seldom used. Although 10 years old, the vehicle had only 4,500 miles on it.Haydt said that the chief in Alaska reported that the truck was only taken out about once a month."We are essentially getting a new rescue truck at a very, very reasonable price," he said.Haydt said that the company conducted some heavy research before deciding to purchase, including speaking to the manufacturer about original specifications, and questioning the Kodiak Island chief and the dealer in Washington that sold it to their department.The new truck will help to update the fleet, among other advantages."This is going to help take some pressure off our aging fleet as well as help us get more firefighters to the scene without bringing so much equipment. … It also gives us a command post. Inside the truck we will be able to set up a command post and run a scene."Towamensing Volunteer Fire Department paid a down payment of $10,000 for the heavy rescue truck and requested a loan from the township to pay for the remaining $226,500, which the board approved at Thursday's meeting. The 10-year loan will come with a 1.5 percent interest rate.Kleintop announced that the truck could be in transit to its new home by Wednesday."Our expectations are high on receiving the truck and putting it into service," Haydt said. "It's a safety thing, it's an operations thing, it's a win-win all around."Towamensing Volunteer Fire Company President Eric George said that the department will be selling one of its older vehicles to help offset the cost of the new heavy rescue truck."Since we're getting this new truck, we're selling off one of our older trucks. It's an '85 Chevy van. Previously, it just hauled the cones, the barricades, the 'Road Closed' signs, basically all the traffic control items. It's just too big to get around some of the roads. It just wasn't utilized very much."This new truck here would be utilized more to provide service to the township residents," George said.The department is still working on procuring grants for more new equipment."We'd like to pursue a federal grant to purchase, at minimum, a new tanker, hopefully a pumper tanker, and that would allow us to reduce the fleet," Haydt said.In related matters, the fire police have been approved to provide assistance for the Raising the House 5K on March 25 and the Blue Mountain Health System 10K, 5K Fun/Walk on May 13.The fire company's "All You Can Eat Breakfast" has been rescheduled toMarch 26, to avoid conflicting schedules with another department's activities.The breakfast will run from 7 a.m. to noon, and include eggs, potatoes bacon, sausage, pancakes, juice, milk, coffee and tea.