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The Howe Springs Fire Rescue fleet should be receiving some new and refurbished firefighting equipment soon.

FLORENCE, S.C. — A great deal of thought and effort has already gone into the seven fire fire trucks that will soon join the Howe Springs Fire Rescue fleet — and work to fabricate them hasn’t even started yet.

But start it will, and soon. And the new, and refurbished, trucks should be in service by the end of the year. Most of them, anyway.

“We were going to be building four types of trucks, an engine, a tanker, a ladder and a rescue vehicle,” said Chief William Dillon. “We set up four committees of our personnel, mostly volunteer with a few paid staff to design these trucks. Met with vendors, went in and out of state to visit departments that recently took delivery of trucks.”

One committee member went to far as to stay with relatives in the New York area and visited ladder truck stations to see what worked, and didn’t, for them.

Then the department solicited bids and with E1 for the custom trucks and FES for the commercial trucks, Dillon said.

Custom fire trucks are the ones that look unique and very much like fire trucks, commercial fire trucks are the ones that look like the back of a fire truck bolted onto the front of a commercial cab.

“We currently run a fleet of E1 customs and FES built commercial fire trucks. That’s our entire fleet,” Dillon said — so the additions to the fleet will feel right at home.

Dillon said the layout and design of the trucks presents a challenge given that the agency’s coverage area includes a large urban area as well as a lot of rural central Florence County.

“We are fighting fire up in the city of Florence, Second Loop, Church Street, anywhere off Pamplico Highway so we’re working fires in the commercial district and we’re fighting fires out in the rural setting where it’s nothing bur farm houses and barns,” Dillon said.

Because of that, the agency’s first-out engines carry enough water and are equipped to act as a tanker while the first-out tankers have a pump on board to behave as a fire engine.

Both have short wheel bases to make maneuvering onto and then down and around a long driveway possible.

The agency has ordered two custom fire engines — E1 Typhoons similar to the last trucks purchased. The agency has ordered two FES tankers that will have tandem axles for safety, a shorter wheel base and will carry more water.

Dillon said committee members have already been down to Florida for prebuild meetings as well as Sumter for the same thing.

“Our engines should start being built about the first of March. We’ll go down sometime around the first of May for a mid-build inspection,’ Dillon said. “End of may for final inspection and drive back to Florence.”

“For two pumpers, to do that, four of us will go down and it’ll take us three days to inspect the trucks for their entirety,” Dillon said.

The schedule calls for the department’s new heavy rescue truck to be completed in August, a new ladder truck in October, the two tankers by the end of the year and there is no date yet for the refurbishment of a rescue truck that will have a new commercial chassis placed under it.

The department has ordered a true ladder truck — no pump and no tank, just the 100-foot ladder and storage compartments.

“We were able to safe several thousands of dollars for not putting the pump and tank on it and it gave us a lot more space for equipment,” Dillon said. “Surrounding agencies have platforms — we can provide them with a (ladder), they can provide us with a platform. We don’t all have the same thing.”

Dillon said the response pattern the department uses doesn’t require the ladder truck to provide anything but a ladder.

“When you talk ladder trucks you’re talking $1 million, this one was under $1 million,” Dillon said. “That truck, we’ll get 20-25 years of service out of it.”

Dillon said all the trucks have a home in store for them.

“The engines, one will go the Greenwood Community and the other to the Evergreen Community. Both of those truck protect Highway 51 (Pamplico Highway) and it’s going to be a nice addition. They’ll have the extrication tools prepared in the front bumper,” he said.

“The tankers will go out to the more rural settings because they carry more water than the current tankers,” Dillon said. “Put 500 more gallons and shorten the truck up. And the truck is going to be safer than what we currently run.”

The ladder will go to the headquarters station on South Irby Street to replace the ladder here there, close to McCall Farms, many large churches and the apartment complexes on South Freedom Boulevard and South Irby Street.

The heavy rescue truck will go to the Howe Springs Road station where it can respond to the larger and higher-impact crashes on Claussen and Paper Mill roads.

The refurbished rescue — to be rebuilt as an air and light truck, will be stationed at Evergreen when it will provide backup for wrecks and more.

“This truck is more for larger incidents, it can fill 100-plus cylinders without having to leave the scene and it’s going to have a lot more lighting opportunities,” Dillon said.

It’ll also have a coffee maker and be able to store and provide nutrition for firefighters when they’re out at major incidents, he said.

Still to plan are the welcoming ceremonies for the vehicles — whether to do one big one or several smaller ones at the stations from which the new trucks will respond.

The department plans to retain one of the Ford C-cab trucks it has had since the 1980s to use as a ceremonial vehicle as well as an active fire truck where a smaller, lighter, shorter truck would come in handy.

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The Howe Springs Fire Rescue fleet should be receiving some new and refurbished firefighting equipment soon.

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