By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Kevin White, Chief of the Parsons Volunteer Fire Department, updated the Parsons City Council on some of the projects the VFD has been using the City’s Fire Fees to fund. The update came as part of the Council’s March 18th regular meeting.
The largest expense the VFD has made over the past year has been the refurbishment of the Department’s 1994 fire engine. White said the original plan when he requested to withdraw fire fee funds last year was to apply the money towards the purchase of a new engine, but at a cost of nearly a million dollars, the cost was well out of the department’s budget.
White said the Department decided to have their existing rig refurbished instead, at a significant savings to the department and the City. “That engine come in at nearly a million dollars, so we backed out of that deal and we decided to go ahead and send our 1994 truck off for refurbishment at $250,00 instead making much better use of our funds available,” White said.
White said a group from the Parsons VFD traveled to where the rig is being serviced to observe the progress. “We went last week, a group of us went, on Wednesday of last week, to inspect the truck,” White said. “It has been stripped down. They have put all new air tanks on it, all new air lines, all new brakes, all new brake cylinders, all new radiators, the engine has been rebuilt. They are getting ready to do pump inspection. Every component on the truck has been completely been stripped off. So basically it was a cab and chassis is all it was.”
According to White, the group also went over the layout and specs of the refurbishment while they were at the shop, including the new design of the compartment layout. “They have designed all that type of stuff,” White said. “As far as compartments go, we are putting in some roll out trays, some technology that exists now that didn’t exist back in 1994 when the truck was originally built,” White said.
White said the rig has been scanned and determined to be sound. “The truck is completely sound,” White said. “The frame was X-rayed and checked out. Everything is perfectly fine with it. The undercarriage is fine. “
White said that the shop is preparing for reassembly which will entail the laying out of the compartments, paint, new warning lights, new interior and new seats. “Its basically going to be a brand new truck for an eighth of the cost,” White said.
The Department anticipates many more years of service from the truck, White said, following the refurbishment.
White also informed the Council of the donation of a new 10 foot Homestead Trailer that the Department intends to purpose as a spill response unit. “In preparation for Corridor H coming on down the line, we were donated, by a very generous donor, a brand new Homestead Trailer, 10 foot trailer” White said. “We are purposing that trailer as a spill response unit because we do respond on spills.”
White said that the unit is being used only for spills, not Hazmat situations. “Please don’t confuse Hazmat with Spills, two separate components,” White said.
The unit is being designed to clean and contain spills until the proper authorities arrive on scene, White said. “But this is going to be repurposed to help cleanup and contain spills until the proper people get here to take care of it,” White said.
White said the Department does not want any of the situations, but with Corridor H coming to the area, he anticipates the need for such a unit in the future once the highway is completed. “We don’t want any of those situations, but we do anticipate with the increased traffic increasing that is going to be something that we will be faced with more often,” White said.
The unit will assist in keeping spill materials out of waterways, water supplies and sewers, White said. “We want to keep it out of our waterways, out of our storm drains, out of our sewer, if possible, out of our water supply,” White said.
White said there was a close call a couple of years ago that the Department responded to. “We did have one a couple of years ago that we worked along 219 that it came dangerously close contaminating the intakes,” White said.
White said his Department wasn’t as prepared as they should have been on the call, but the new trailer will make sure they are in the future. “I would say that at that time we wasn’t as prepared as we could have been, but with this unit, this is going to help us be more prepared with simple things such as oil dry,” White said.
Fire fee money will be used to outfit and equip the trailer, White said. “We’ll use fire fees for that to help supply and equip that,” White said.
