HOMER — Banks County residents soon will be seeing the newest member of the Banks County Fire/EMS fleet responding to emergencies.
The county’s 2016 HME Ahrens-Fox SilverFox custom pumper arrived in the county recently, and soon will be placed in service at Station 31 at Banks Crossing.
The truck features a 1,250-gallon-per-minute pump and a 1,000-gallon tank.
Commissioners got their first look at the truck this week, gathering outside the Banks County Courthouse Annex in Homer to examine the truck that will serve the county’s busiest station.
Once it is placed in service, the $290,000 fire truck will allow the county to realign the positioning of its fire apparatus and retire a 37-year-old Chevrolet fire truck from the county’s Davis Academy station.
“We had gotten ourselves in the position of where we had a 1980 Chevrolet FMC fire truck that has been here for a long time,” said Banks County Fire/EMS Chief Steve Nichols. ”It was actually bought used from a major department in the metro area. It’s high mileage, it had a lot of problems with it, and it was time to be replaced. Fortunately, the [commission] saw the same need, and they allowed us to purchase a new truck.”
During the reassignment of trucks, higher-mileage apparatus will be moved out to volunteer stations that don’t run as many calls as stations with assigned paid personnel.
Money for the purchase will come out of the county’s capital fund, and will be replaced with proceeds from the 2017 SPLOST once collections accumulate, Commission Chairman Jimmy Hooper said.
“This is the first new fire truck that we’ve purchased in 15 years and we’re excited about it, kind of like Christmas Day,” Hooper said after climbing out of the driver’s seat during commissioners’ inspection of the apparatus. “The good part about it is we got it at a real good price. It’s SPLOST money that taxpayers wanted to see used for safety, and it’s just great. Public safety is our main concern. We want the people of Banks County to be safe and we want to do as much as we can for them.”
