City to donate firetruck to Thunderbird VFD

Camp County’s Thunderbird Point Volunteer Fire Department will soon add another truck to its line of vehicles thanks to the City of Pittsburg.

The City Council voted in its June 11 meeting to remove the inactive 1990 Ford Fire Truck – known as Booster 1 – from the city fleet so it can be repurposed and put back into service in the county.

“We have a truck that we replaced with a new city firetruck purchased this year,” Clint Hardeman told the Council. “We are working with Thunderbird Point Volunteer Fire Department for them to be able to use that truck with a mutual aid agreement.”

“Thunderbird is anxiously waiting on that truck,” said Mayor Shawn Kennington.

Pittsburg Fire Chief Carl Cravey said when the department started looking at purchasing its shiny new multipurpose Engine 3, the decision was made to take Booster 1 and a second vehicle – Engine 9 circa the early 1970s - out of service. The city plans to auction Engine 9.

“Engine 9 doesn’t have a very large water tank; therefore, it wouldn’t be much use to any of the county departments around here, so the city is going to auction it off,” Cravey said. “Booster 1, we always had it in our plan that as we upgraded equipment here that we would try to help the county departments that were helping us and get them some better, newer equipment.”

While Booster 1 is an older vehicle, it will be a welcome addition to Thunderbird Point, which is stationed in a Lake Bob Sandlin subdivision on County Road 2603 and actively runs fire calls in the county and backs up the city crews.

“They’ve got a really good fire department out there, and they assist us in any way we need them. They don’t just cover their area. If we need them, they go to Centerpoint or Leesburg or wherever. All we have to do is ask, and they’ll get a truck headed that way.”

With two grass trucks, a booster truck and an engine, the 1990 fire engine will give them an additional 1,000-gallon water tank capacity.

“They have one truck that holds 500 gallons and one that holds 1,000 gallons, so this will be a substantial upgrade for them,” Cravey said.

The new truck that the city purchased for the Pittsburg Fire Department, which went into service March 16, by comparison, holds 2,000 gallons of water and is a chameleon in the firefighting world with gear that transforms it into a myriad of fire vehicles.

“It’s rolling out first on any structure fire, and it doesn’t have just one capability. It’s a very flexible truck that we can utilize for basically anything,” Cravey said. “We’ve got another truck that holds 2,000 gallons, so we’re rolling up on any structure fire with 4,000 gallons of water.”

Cravey said the 1990 model does have some sentimental value to the department, but they are happy to be able to hand it off to their fellow firefighters.

“We built that truck ourselves. We got the cab, and the chassis and a lot of the volunteers and the paid personnel all worked on it and put the truck together,” he said. “It’s a good truck. I fought a lot of fire with it. It served our purpose for a long time, and it’s got a lot of life left in it.”