The Jonesburg-High Hill Fire Protection District purchased two new trucks over the summer.

Now, it has to wait until this fall to get them.

The trucks are scheduled to be delivered in September 2022. Fire Chief John Woods said the district plans to pay them off within a 12-year period.

“Whenever we presented it to the board, the board looked at the plans very carefully and weighed the pros and cons of everything,” Woods said. “But at the end, the decision was made that we would go ahead with buying two trucks, financing them for the 12-year period and going ahead and replacing the two older pumpers we have here. They really need to be replaced as quickly as possible.”

In April, voters in the fire district approved a tax increase to update its aging fleet and purchase new equipment. Woods presented the tax increase proposal to the Board of Directors last year.

“The nice thing about the new trucks that are coming in is that the three trucks we have currently are kind of different from each other all the way around,” Woods said. “One of the trucks that we’re keeping is rather similar to the new ones that are coming in. We’ve been doing a lot of drivers’ training with that particular truck. So whenever the two new trucks come in, all we have to do is train the guys on a couple of items on that truck that are a little different. They’ll be ready to go with those two.”

Woods said the fire district made the proposal of buying two trucks within a 12-year period during a July meeting.
“Instead of buying one truck and paying it off over six years and buying the next truck and paying off over six years, we would actually buy the two trucks and pay it off over 12 years,” Woods said. “This would get both of these trucks out of the door and give both communities – Jonesburg and High Hill – very good and very reliable equipment for the foreseeable future. Another advantage of this is the current low interest rates. It was in the neighborhood of two percent. It also took advantage of the fact that there was going to be a rather sizable price increase next year.”

Also, the fire district recently received two sets of extrication tools that are worth $80,000.

“Each pump crew will have a brand new set of extrication tools on it,” Woods said. “We’re going to start training on them within the next month with the vendor who sold them to us and do some practice with those. At least one set will be put on the trucks, if not both. We’ll be in great shape.”