The City Council has approved the purchase of two mini fire trucks for the fire department which may be a good idea, but the effects of this change and application leaves some concern without enough personnel to operate the system properly.

First of all, this is a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul system because the money in the revolving equipment fund to replace a larger pumper fire truck which desperately needs to be replaced will not be there. This pumper is the largest user of repair money as stated, $108,000 from 2006-09, which will only get worse. Also, the backup fire truck currently being used and considered unsafe may not get retired as it should be.

Then, personnel will be taken from the larger fire trucks to operate the mini fire trucks, which will leave less personnel or no one to operate the other fire trucks when needed. An example would be when the mini fire trucks are out on a call which was indicated as 90 percent of the time and a vehicle wreck occurs or other emergency requiring extraction equipment that can only be carried on a larger fire truck, then someone would have to return to the station to get the correct apparatus.

Under the current operations’ memo, firefighters can only operate one truck at a time for 13 hours of each 24-hour period if enough personnel are on duty to do so.

If the streets cause damage to the fire trucks now, they will do the same to a mini fire truck because the chassis are proportioned for their size and weight.

Finally, a mini fire truck will not be able to respond to an emergency any quicker than a larger fire truck. The reason is that there are policies and state laws in place which restrict how fast firefighters can operate fire trucks, and the only way they could respond quicker is to violate those restrictions.

J. Reed

Ottumwa