The Lincolnwood Fire Department has a shiny new fire engine, adding to the current fleet and coming at a price tag of nearly $1 million.
More than two years after the Village Board approved the purchase of a new fire engine in October 2022, the vehicle went into full operational use in December. However, by early-January, it had yet to sent out on a call.
According to fire department Deputy Chief Bryan Pierce, the 2024 Pierce Enforcer fire engine cost the village $948,000 but the funds came from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. The price tag was about $400,000 more than what was spent on a truck in 2016.
“I’m just hoping it will serve the community for a long period of time,” Pierce told Pioneer Press about the new fire engine.
Based on availability of vehicles and a desire to bring down overall cost, Pierce said the village collaborated with Houston-Galveston Area Council, which offers a nationwide cooperative purchasing program called Helping Governments Across the Country Buy, or HGACBuy.
He explained that a backlog of orders meant that the vendor, MacQueen, located in Aurora, did not start building the Pierce Enforcer until early April 2024 and delivered the vehicle on Sept. 11.
“We added to the fleet,” Pierce said. “We didn’t want to get rid of anything. Things break. It takes several weeks to get parts in because that’s just the world we live in.”
Pierce said the other two fire engines the department has are a 2016 Spartan Gladiator and a 2002 Luverne.
“Typically, you have a frontline engine for 10 years. Then it goes through a reserve status for 10 years. Then we let it go at that point. We have two that are in reserve right now,” he said. “We also have a tower ladder. When that goes down, we place one of the (reserve) engines in service.”
The new fire engine, which was displayed at a fire department open house on Oct. 20, became fully operational Dec. 13 but had not been on any fire calls as of the start of the new year, Pierce said.
According to MacQueen, Lincolnwood’s new pumper is 9 feet-11 inches tall and features a Cummins L9 engine, 450 horsepower, TAK-4 independent front suspension, air rear suspension, Command Zone electrical system and the ability to pump 1,500 gallons of water per minute from a 750-gallon tank.
“It has a lot more airbags on it,” Pierce said about the new fire truck. “It has a lot of seat sensors so that way the engineer always knows when somebody’s seat belt is off or on. The steering is a lot better. The turning radius is a lot tighter. The emergency lighting is better.”
Other safety improvements he said the new vehicle offers include cameras all around and a system that notifies drivers on the road that the fire engine is coming through.
“There’s not a lot of bling on it. It’s more just based off function and to be able to provide a service to the village,” said Pierce.
Preparing the new fire engine to be fully operational included mounting some equipment as well as training for the full-time engineers, or drivers, he said.
“We had each driver drive 10 non-emergency hours (and do) five hours of pumping,” Pierce said. “We have three per shift that had to go through that. Then everybody else will eventually filter through.”
He said the department’s fleet also includes a 2011 Pierce 105-foot tower ladder.
“Typically, those get replaced every 20 years and the sad fact is we will have to pretty much go to the table and start placing an order in 2027 so that way we can actually get it in 2031. That’s how backlogged everything is,” Pierce said.
In order to keep pricing down and try to stay with the same type of fleet, he anticipates going through Houston-Galveston Area Council for the new tower ladder, which would be paid for with funds from the village budget.
Pierce said the Lincolnwood Fire Department went on 3,343 calls in 2024, which was about 110 calls more than the year prior.
Jessi Virtusio is a freelancer.
