St. Pierre has a new fire truck. 

Martin Morisette, Fire Chief, says they ordered the pumper roughly two years ago, and it has finally arrived. 

They wanted a new pumper truck since theirs was getting old. 

“It's a 1993, and for a pumper, I do believe every 25 years you should be replacing those.” 

They are going to try selling the old truck. He says it’s still in good condition to be sold as a secondary truck. 

It took them 14 months of heavy planning to make sure this new fire truck was the best design for them. They had a committee sit down, inspect, and design the truck. 

The new truck was just shy of $650,000 and was paid for by the town of St. Pierre and its constituency. 

“It's exciting for everybody to see, especially for our tax-paying members in town and the R.M., that their tax dollars have gone to update a vehicle that's going to service their community for the next 20+ years.” 

When deciding how to design their fire truck, Morisette says they took a tour of fire trucks in surrounding communities. 

“We drove around and looked at multiple fire departments, and saw what they liked about their new trucks,” he says. “We took ideas from the four trucks we looked at, and we designed our own along with Scott from E-ONE.” 

This fire truck will be able to help many people, even outside of St. Pierre, as they have mutual aid agreements in case of emergencies. 

“We go as far as West Hawk Lake for any emergencies, so we've done that in the past for forest fires.”  

The new firetruck has five seats, so there’s room for the driver and four passengers. 

Morisette says there are many other upgrades as well. 

“This is a pumper truck, so the ladders are contained within a compartment. There are multiple tools that are going to be on this truck for firefighting, overhaul, and fire suppression. It's a well-designed truck.” 

They can now put all of their equipment in the one fire truck, instead of having it spread apart in three different vehicles. It can also hold 1,000 gallons of water. 

“We can deliver quicker response, and it’s great for protecting folks that live in our district.”  

Everyone at the fire department is excited for the town to see the new pumper truck. 

They currently have it covered it up so that nobody can sneak a peek or take pictures before the big reveal.  

On Sunday from 12-3pm, you can go see the truck. The firetruck will be parked on the Firehall parking lot. 

They will be partaking in a tradition from way back in the early 1800s. 

They would have horse and trailer buggies carrying the water and the equipment back in the day, but the horses weren't capable of backing in trailers, so the town would push it into the hall.  

Nowadays, typically for a new vehicle, multiple departments have continued that tradition the first time it gets put into service. 

They are going to have council members and past fire chiefs help them push the truck into the hall, as members from the community are pulling it from the back. 

They plan to push the truck in at around 12:30pm. After that, they will be having a hot dog lunch. 

The event has free entry with donation of a non-perishable item or gently used winter wear for kids.  

“We're going to donate to Koats for Kids. The food and donations are all going to charity around town, and if not, it'll go to a food bank.”  

He encourages you to come take a look because it is a beautiful truck.  

“It is going to be one of the ones that I think other departments are going to look at,” he says. “It's very similar to the pumper truck that's in St. Malo and we got a lot of ideas from them. They have a beautiful truck also.” 

 

with files from Adi Loewen