Spokane County Fire Distict 4 invests $50K into aerial platform truck purchase

New apartment buildings and an increasing number of large commercial buildings in Deer Park have prompted Spokane County Fire District 4 to purchase an aerial platform truck that will allow them to direct streams of water onto a fire from dozens of feet in the air.

The district hasn’t owned a ladder truck of any kind before, but the purchase was necessary to maintain the district’s fire insurance rating, said Fire Chief Randy Johnson. “It’s a good addition to the capacity of the district,” he said.

The 1995 Simon Duplex truck was purchased from the Yakima Fire Department for $50,000. It has a platform on the end of a 102-foot ladder where firefighters can stand and direct water on a fire below. Captain Megan Hill joked that it was a “one owner, low miles” purchase. Despite its age, it has just under 40,000 miles on it and still has plenty of life, Hill said.

All of the trucks owned by the Yakima Fire Department are white with a red stripe, as is the aerial platform truck, but Hill said there are no plans to repaint it red to match the rest of the district’s fleet. It will be housed at Station 41 on Crawford Road in Deer Park both because that’s where it is needed and that’s the only station it will fit into, she said.

The station, which was completed last year, has an enormous drive-thru truck bay with five sets of doors that are 14 feet high. “They did build those doors to accommodate a ladder truck,” Hill said.

The truck, now named Tower 41, is taller and longer than others the district owns and will be difficult to get down some of the narrower streets. “I’m not looking forward to driving this thing through the city of Deer Park,” she said. “It’s so much bigger than anything we’ve ever had. You can imagine the amount of training we’re going to have to do.”

Crews will be trained soon to operate the truck, and it should be on the road by June. But residents shouldn’t expect to see it out and about much. It will only be used for fire calls at apartment complexes and commercial buildings where it may be needed.

The truck also needs to hook up to a fire hydrant, which Deer Park has but the rest of the district does not. Its on-board water tank holds only 200 gallons, which is only a drop in the bucket. Other types of engines can carry 500 to 1,000 gallons or more. “Two hundred gallons is nothing,” Hill said.

The department keeps 35-foot ladders on each of its engines for rescues and roof access, but it had become clear that something better was needed, Hill said, especially after a three-story apartment complex was built in Deer Park last year.

“People have been batting around a ladder truck in Deer Park for a long time,” she said. “You know you’re going to need one.”

The ladder on the new truck can extend 102 feet, though the amount of water pumping through the hose on the platform determines the angle the ladder can be raised to. The faster the water flows, the lower the angle has to be.

Johnson, who started his firefighting career in Yakima, said he’d been looking for a ladder truck for months. A ladder truck doesn’t have a platform on the end of the ladder, just a spot for a firefighter to strap himself in while he operates the hose. Johnson found one in New York and even sent his mechanic to look at it, but wasn’t impressed. “It wasn’t a great deal,” he said.

He happened to be in Olympia for a legislative day recently and ran into some former colleagues from Yakima, who mentioned that the city of Yakima was trying to get rid of an aerial platform truck that it had replaced with a new truck.

Johnson called the city’s mechanic who had maintained the truck and asked if it had any issues. It didn’t. The truck was cheaper, closer and in better shape than the one in New York. “I was in Yakima when it was bought,” Johnson said. “It didn’t have a rough life.”