PV fire gets new truck

Pahranagat Valley Volunteer Fire?Department has a new fire truck in the?lineup. Rick Stever, chief of the Lincoln?County Fire District, said the truck was?purchased by Lincoln County, but Stever?said he is going to station it in Alamo, ?to?make it easier for them to respond out of?their district and within the county?s fire?district.?

The truck is a 2016 Dodge Ram 5500?with a CAFS unit (Compressed Air Foam?System), a 150 gallon ?foam solution vessel,? four large air storage bottles, and a?series of levers, values, pressure regulator, manifold, and a single attached hose?line, plus a 385-gallon water tank.

Stever said the unit was built by BG?Fire in Elgin, North Dakota, and he was?able to purchase the truck with money?remaining in the fire district budget.

Lonny Walch, president of the?Pahranagat fire department said, ?We?call it a squad truck. It has four doors?and will seat six. It?s going to be a piece?of equipment we can use here to run on car accidents as well as fires. It will carry?our Jaws of Life machinery and has some?really nice compartments built into it.?

The truck was delivered April 8 to?Alamo by Ron Bartz of BG Fire. He gave?a training session to about six of the PV?volunteer firefighters and has tentatively?scheduled another training for July and?possibly in March of 2017. ?Training is?an endless process,? Stever said, ?It?s?ongoing all the time.?

The new truck is housed at the Eric?Lee Memorial Fire Station in Alamo. Stever noted ?Alamo has been doing a tremendous job in supporting the county,?responding outside their own district,?responding to calls up and down U.S. 93,?along State Route 318, and out to Rachel?on State Route 375. They have been very?cooperative in taking those calls, and we?are very grateful for their help.?

Walch also said the new truck will definitely improve what they have had, and?they might move one of the other trucks?up to the Hiko Fire Station.

He added the new truck is faster than?any of the others. ?Top speed on what?we have had is about 65 miles per hour,?but this new truck is much faster, and?will improve our response time by a?couple of minutes. And the CAFS system is also going to allow us to assist on?structure fires in town, in the valley, on?rural calls, etc. It will be a great help in?many ways.?

PVVFD chief Steve Meldrum said?new technology is showing that compressed air foam is just as effective in?firefighting as water.