ST. GEORGE — Fruits of the Safe St. George plan are beginning to ripen with the City Council’s approval on Thursday for the purchase of two new fire engines for the Fire Department.
The two new apparatus – one pumper truck and one quint (a pumper and ladder combination) – are being ordered to help fill the demand for fire protection in the southern part of the city where a new fire station also is slated to be built.
The collective cost of the two fire engines is over $2.4 million. Both vehicles were on the city’s 2023 budget as a part of the city’s five-year Safe St. George plan.
While using property tax as a means to help fund the plan was abandoned by the City Council in August, the council still voted to fund the first-year plan following revisions made to the city’s 2023 budget.
“These will bring our total fleet of apparatus to 16,” St. George Fire Chief Robert Stoker said.
Both fire engines are being purchased from Wisconsin-based Pierce Manufacturing, which has supplied the city with custom-built fire engines for over 30 years.
“We’re very happy with the product they provide,” Stoker said.
Once ordered, it generally has taken 12-18 months for a custom fire engine to be built; however, orders for Pierce Manufacturing now run between 24-30 months out.
When the new fire engines arrive in two-plus years, Stoker said the quint possibly will be placed at the planned Station 10 set for the Desert Canyons development, while the pumper could be sent to Station 8 in SunRiver.
As the engines are custom built, Stoker said the new apparatus are being built shorter in length than those already in use by the Fire Department. This is due to new developments like Desert Canyons and the surrounding area having narrower streets that could pose a problem for the mobility of larger fire engines.
“So with some of the different neighborhood designs and things, we’ve got to adapt our tactics and our apparatus to be able to fit in those areas,” the fire chief said.
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