Excerpts from the daily-chronicle.com:
The Sycamore City Council unanimously approved a consideration to buy a replacement fire engine through a purchasing cooperative agreement during its meeting Monday. The department will work with one of two cooperatives to purchase an engine with a water capacity of 3,000 gallons for an estimated $550,000. It will replace the 30-year-old Engine 4.
Engine 4 was purchased in 1989 and was meant for rural communities because of the truck’s high water capacity. Now faced with a growing rural population, the department needs a newer truck that can hold even more. The department will sell Engine 4 to offset the cost of the half-million-dollar truck it plans to purchase. The city and the fire protection district will also provide $365,000.
The agreement will allow the department to work with Texas-based HGACBuy or Minnesota-based Sourcewell to secure a cheaper price on a Rosenbauer pumper-tanker. A previous purchasing cooperative agreement saved the fire department $5,000 on an ambulance.
Sycamore firefighters responded at 3 a.m. Saturday to a fire at a Sycamore home. No injuries were reported, but the fire was estimated to have caused $150,000 in damage. Assistant Fire Chief Todd Turner told council members that it didn’t matter whether firefighters who responded to Saturday morning’s fire had a new truck, they would have run out of water. However, an engine with a higher capacity than Engine 4’s 2,000 gallons would have helped.
