Crime & Safety

Ramsey May Replace Three 30-Year-Old Fire Trucks

The new trucks would come with a $2M price tag, but officials say the current trucks are unsafe for Ramsey firefighters

Most members of the Ramsey Borough Council said they were in favor of replacing three town fire trucks after a fire department presentation Monday night said the outdated trucks are a safety hazard to Ramsey’s volunteer squad.

At Monday night’s council meeting, members of the FD explained why they would like to simultaneously replace two Engine trucks currently in the department’s seven-vehicle fleet.

Engine 432 is 25 years old, has answered over 11,000 calls, and is rusting through, firefighters said. It was manufactured by Mack Trucks, which no longer makes fire trucks. So, replacement parts are not available. As of Sunday night, the engine broke down in the middle of a fire call and is temporarily out of service. Firefighters said the vehicle is requiring more maintenance as it gets older.

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Engine 434 is 28 years old, has answered over 10,000 calls, and has an open cab, meaning firefighters riding in the truck are exposed to the elements. Open cabs were disallowed from New Jersey fire trucks in 1991, though firefighters said there are many still in use throughout the state.

“Generally speaking, these trucks have a 20-year useful life,” George Fosdick, who has chaired the truck replacement committee for the past 18 months, said. “We are way beyond that at this point.”

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Over the past year, the FD has been revising its proposal to the council in an attempt to reduce the cost of the purchases. Monday night’s proposal estimated the two engines would cost about $535,000 each. That estimate shaved about $100,000 off the FD’s previous proposal.

“We basically revamped the specifications we would need in order to get the price down,” Fosdick said. “We’re not asking for anything special [on the truck]. It’s basically the assembly line model with slight modifications to fit how we work.”

Fosdick also said the department would like to purchase two identical engines, so they could be interchangeable between the FD’s two fire houses, and training and maintenance would be the same on both.

Originally, the FD also proposed completely replacing Ladder truck 441. That Mack truck is 29 years old and has answered over 13,500 calls.

Monday night, the FD presented a revised plan to refurbish the truck, by taking the existing crane and lifting apparatus off the truck, and placing it on a new chassis.

According to the FD, the refurbishing would cost about $800 – 850,000, as opposed to $1.5M for a completely new truck.

Firefighters stressed the importance of all three trucks on the fleet.

“It is really becoming a safety issue,” Fosdick said. “If we are left with only one engine in town, lives will be in danger.”

Though the purchases would cost about $1.9M, most council members said they were in favor of getting the new trucks.

“There really is no excess spending in these proposals,” Councilwoman Deirdre Dillon, the Public Safety Chair who has been working with the FD on the proposal, said.

Councilman Harry Weber agreed.

The firefighters “shouldn’t be penalized for getting the life out of these trucks that they do,” Weber said. “Safety is a big issue.”

However, the council said it would like to work on a depreciation plan for the other trucks in the fleet, so they could be maintained or upgraded on a more regular basis, in an effort to avoid having to make a large capital expenditure to replace multiple trucks at one time.

“We don’t want to be in the same spot 10 or 15 years from now,” Councilman Ken Tyburczy said.

The council said it would continue to discuss the potential purchases at its Wednesday night meeting.

According to the FD, the process of buying new fire trucks is a lengthy one. Representatives said they would not expect to actually have the trucks in Ramsey for a year, after the purchases are approved by the council.

Until then, reps said they would continue to make repairs on the existing trucks.

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