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Norwood Park buys new fire engine
Firefighter/EMT Leigh Unger tests the deluge gun on top of the new engine which the Norwood Park Fire Department put into service in the beginning of June. Lt. Claude Erlewein, Firefighter/EMT Rich Appelhans and Firefighter Jim Cotiguala assist. Purchased in April for about $450,000, all the engineers had to train with the new engine before it could be put into service. | Ryan Pagelow~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: July 15, 2012 6:05AM
The Norwood Park Fire Department added a new fire engine to their ranks this month which they helped design.
The new 2012 Pierce Impel cost $450,000 and replaces the fire department’s 1996 engine, which it sold to a fire department in northern Wisconsin, said Fire Chief Kevin Stenson.
A committee of firefighters worked with the manufacturer in Appleton, Wis., to make the heavy hoses more accessible at the back of the truck which were placed at shoulder level rather than up high like in previous engines.
And for the first time Norwood Park firefighters and paramedics will have air conditioning in their engine which is good for cooling down during breaks while fighting a fire, Stenson said. Before they were just given water to cool down.
Like the previous fire engine it carries 750 gallons of water, though the truck is a few inches taller and wider. It also has medical gear for paramedics and emergency medical technicians like an ambulance.
“We love the finished product,” Stenson said. “We only have a new piece of equipment every 10 or 15 years.”
The truck was purchased in May and it took a couple weeks for all the engineers to train in the new engine before it could be put into service on June 1 when the fire department’s chaplain Father Fred Tomzik of St. Monica Parish in Chicago blessed the truck.
— Ryan Pagelow
