Community helps welcome new Ladder 10 to the Greenacres Fire Station

Kids and kids-at-heart gathered on the lawn outside the Spokane Valley Fire Department’s Greenacres Station on Saturday morning, eagerly waiting for a chance to get a look at the department’s new Ladder 10 engine.

The engine, an articulated tiller-driver aerial ladder truck with a rear driving position, isn’t in service yet, but that didn’t stop people from climbing inside to take a look, once the open house got underway.

“I like the firemen,” said Karen Hirst, who fell into the kid-at-heart category. “They know me. They come to my house quite a bit.”

Hirst was impressed with the new engine, which she hadn’t seen before. “Wow, this is neat,” she said as she sat in one of the seats.

Jerry Baird was there on a mission – to allow his grandson to have fun. “My daughter told me this was going on, but she had to work today,” he said.

His grandson’s first stop was the fire hose. Kids could use a small fire hose attached to a brush truck to knock over traffic cones. It put out about 10 gallons of water a minute, which is much easier to handle than the 150 gallons per minute that comes from a full sized fire hose.

“He loved it,” Baird said. “He was knocking them over pretty good.”

Inside the station, people could tour the living quarters, and children got to try on bunker gear large enough to swallow them up. Those interested in the nitty gritty details of firefighting could check out the extractor laundry machine in the building next door that is used to clean firefighter’s gear after a fire.

The highlight of the day was the push-in ceremony, when firefighters and members of the community pushed the new Ladder 10 into the fire station.

“So far I’m really enjoying it,” Baird said. “It’s fun to see what actually goes on.”