Earlier this month, Onalaska residents participated in a push-in ceremony alongside Lewis County Fire District 1 (LCFD1) firefighters after the department’s new Rosenbauer pumper tanker was delivered.
Onalaska elementary and middle school students helped wash the new truck before the ceremonial push-in on June 6, LCFD1 Chief Brad Flexhaug said.
Push-in ceremonies and wash-downs are a firefighting tradition going back to the days when the horses used to pull engines, tanks needed to be washed after a job and steam engines had to be pushed back into firehouses.
The new truck, complete with an internal 2,500-gallon water tank and a severe duty chassis, is the first purchased by the department since 1981, Flexhaug said.
“It’s everything that we need, hopefully, a first-in-at-the-scene truck,” Flexhaug said.
He said the department began looking for a new truck last year and settled on the pumper tanker at a cost of around $438,000.
“They’re expensive. If we had waited to order one now, we’d be paying around $600,000,” Flexhaug said.
Additionally, LCFD1 also refurbished one of its ambulances, Flexhaug said. The 2005 model ambulance was given a new chassis at a cost of around $140,000. Flexhaug said both the refurbished ambulance and new pumper tanker arrived within weeks of each other, prompting the push-in ceremony.
“Small departments, we don’t get new apparatus all that often,” Flexhaug said. “To get two of them all at once is a big deal, so we kind of wanted to celebrate with the community and let them see what their tax dollars are buying.”
The LCFD1 station is located at 1733 Washington state Route 508 in Onalaska.
