The Teton County Board of County Commissioners has given Jackson Hole Fire / EMS the green light to purchase four voter-approved Wildland fire engines.
The decision was made after the department struggled to find an available truck and immediately decided to purchase a demo engine designed solely for forest fire fighting and three custom engines that do more work and are delivered later become.
“Thank you for being creative and combing the world,” Commissioner Luther Propst told Jackson Hole Fire / EMS boss Brady Hansen on Tuesday.
Propst wondered whether the department’s planned acquisitions would be enough to fight fires in the years to come.
Voters approved an earmarked excise tax (SPET) of $ 1.6 million in 2019, which gave Fire / EMS the green light to purchase four Wildland fire trucks, replacing older engines that had been in the fleet since the 1950s .
Hansen said the department sought bids for new trucks but only received one offer from one of the largest truck manufacturers in the United States. That manufacturer, Hansen said, would be able to deliver the trucks, but in 450 days.
“So far more than two more fire seasons before we could get this,” said Hansen.
The reason, the fire chief said, is to speak for all vehicles manufacturers can build, in part because California has bought all the trucks it can.
But Hansen said his department had found a single truck, a demo designed for “pure” forest fire fighting.
He decided to ask the county board for approval to buy the truck, put some additional fire department resources online early, and work with the larger manufacturer to get the other three trucks on the originally proposed schedule.
The other three trucks are tailor-made for Teton County and are used to fight fires in urban wildlands, the fire-prone area where human development meets forest. Teton Village and many areas in the West Bank are one of them.
The commissioners agreed and unanimously supported the purchase.
The Wildland engine is due to be delivered to Fire / EMS shortly, Hansen said.
And in response to Provost’s question, he said the department will likely need more capacity soon. His goal is to have a Wildland locomotive in every station in the district. However, this would expand the capacities in the department, which also reacts to ambulances, building fires and other disasters.
So Hansen said he was “well equipped for the immediate future in the brush trolley department.” But if he can manage to expand his volunteer base, he wouldn’t mind expanding the fleet.
According to an employee report, the demo truck will cost $ 365,000.
The three custom engines will cost a total of $ 1,344,054.
Because the recoveries from the 2019 voter-approved SPET measure are not expected to be completed before the next fiscal year, which begins in July 2022, the remaining $ 109,054 to be recovered will be paid through a capital requirement.
The idea is to enable the purchase sooner rather than later.