It’s important for fire departments to update their vehicles and equipment in a timely manner, to help firefighters in their mission of providing communities with excellent protection.
That thought came to mind when we learned that Euclid Fire Department’s Station 2 has added a new member to its firefighting family — a brand new 1,000-gallon fire apparatus dubbed Engine Number 2.
The $939,000 engine will be replacing the old unit, which came into service in 2016, and will be similar to the old one in that they will be equipped with devices, such as the Jaws of Life, which are designed for extracting people from motor vehicle incidents or other tricky situations.
Assistant Fire Chief Dave Rowell said that the old apparatus will be stored away at the Euclid Service Department, but will be available to the department if the need arises, The News-Herald’s Frank Mecham reported.
“It’s something that we needed and it’s also going to take a lot of the workload off of city garage and motor maintenance,” Rowell said. “It’s just older vehicles that we needed to update.
“When you are running over 13,000 calls a year, it gets a lot of wear and tear out of it. And, usually, when you hit 10 years, you start thinking about putting the apparatus on reserve status.”
“We have two engines in the city, at the same time, at Station 3 and at Station 2, where we can do extrication for vehicles,” Rowell continued. “Where they get into motor vehicle accidents and we need to get somebody out of them, so not only is it a fire pumper but it’s also an extrication vehicle … we have spreaders on there, we have rams and cutters where we can tear up a car and open it up if there is an issue…”
The new engine isn’t the only equipment that the department recently added to its inventory. Through a Firehouse Subs Grant, they were able to secure a $20,000 LUCAS Chest Compression System, which is able to perform chest compressions, freeing up first responders to administer medicine or perform other tasks.
“It’s perfect and works out very well for us,” Rowell said. “We can just get it all set up, start it, and it gives us hands-free so we can work on other issues with the patient. It just gives better care to the patient, less fatigue on our medics, and it just helps out a lot.”
He said that they now have a total of seven LUCAS devices in their ambulances and engines.
“It’s not typical, it’s very atypical,” Rowell said. “We are just lucky, through grants and other approvals by city hall and the city budget we were able to purchase them. Most of the time we try and get it through grant writing, only because of the expense of them.”
The News-Herald commends Euclid Fire Department for its efforts to make important acquisitions, such as the fire engine and LUCAS Chest Compression System. It certainly reflects the department’s desire to provide top-notch service to the city.