Robert Fisher
Staff Reporter
BARRY’S BAY – Council for the Township of Madawaska Valley approved the purchase of a used tanker truck for Madawaska Valley Fire Department. The department took delivery of the truck last week. Fire Chief Corwin Quade, Deputy Chief Dan Drevniok, members of council and township staff were in attendance for the unveiling.
A brand new truck could have cost as much as $700,000 and taken two years or more to receive. The 2001 GMC was already being used by another fire service, had low kilometres and had been upgraded with a new pump and dump system. “It’s turnkey,” Quade said at the council meeting, “just back into the hall, unload the other equipment off the other truck and put it in service.”
The new truck has a 3,000 gallon tank compared to 2,000 on the old one with a 500 gallon/minute flow rate (300 for the old). The new tank is a polyethylene where the old one was steel. And the new truck has only 41,000 kilometres on it. It’s an automatic transmission, where the old one was manual, meaning more people will be able to drive it. The truck is versatile and can be used to haul water or for direct fire suppression.