Palmer gets new $119,000 rescue rig

08/02/05

DAWN DE BUSK/Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - With a 20-plus-year history of working for fire departments, Rep. Carl Gatto, R-Mat-Su, beamed with delight Wednesday afternoon as he drove a new rescue truck from the Port of Anchorage to Palmer's fire department.

"You betcha, I wanted to drive that truck. I said to (Palmer) Fire Chief Dan Contini, 'You know what would be a good idea? Let me drive the truck,' " Gatto said during a phone interview Tuesday.

A TOTE-Ocean Express barge shipped the $119,000 vehicle from Tacoma, Wash., to Alaska, where it arrived earlier in the week, but it took a few days to unload the truck. Wednesday morning, Gatto received the phone call that it was waiting at the dock, ready to pick up.

When the rescue truck pulled into the Daniel Contini Fire Station in downtown Palmer, Contini, Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Mat-Su, Palmer CIty Manager Tom Healy and Gatto admired the 5-550 XL Super Duty truck and all its compartments for hauling rescue gear.

"It's got a good chassis," Contini said. "We'll treat it like a little baby."

The Ford will need TLC to compensate for all its hard-working future.

It will carry support gear, extraction equipment to free people trapped in their cars, mountaineering gear, and a light mast on its roof so rescuers can see their surroundings.

Gatto, whose background as a firefighter gave him the inside skinny about a fire station's needs, helped put a rescue truck for Mat-Su in the budget and kept it from being streamlined out.

"I got the money for it two years ago. It takes a long time to get delivery of any fire equipment," he said, explaining that when a community needs a rescue truck, it must queue up to get a custom-built vehicle.

The fire department couldn't just order a truck off the assembly line, he said. The rescue truck was built by Pierce Manufacturing in Florida, according to Palmer's needs and budget.

"We spent the money wisely. We downsized," Contini said.

The truck doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, no electric windows and no air conditioning.

"If you only have $119,000, you might have to forgo the most advanced communication system but keep enough seats for the employees that might be responding to the fire," Gatto said.

"You used to be able to stand on the back and hold on to the rail and go bouncing down the road," he said. "But, now, you have to be sitting in a seat and buckled in."

Those seats cost money, he said.

When he worked as a teacher, Gatto often asked visiting parents the difference between a fire engine and a fire truck.

First, he would warn his students not to give away the answer; then, he'd pose his question.

Usually a pause followed his question.

The fire engine arrives first with the water and hose. It's the attack rig, which usually carries 500 to 1,000 gallons of water, Gatto explained.

The fire truck shows up later as the support vehicle. It carries the ladder and gear needed for forcible entry or to let smoke out of the structure, allowing firefighters to battle flames, Gatto said.

The role of the new rescue rig, which replaces a 1989 state surplus truck, will be support vehicle; it won't carry water tanks, Contini said.

Gatto served with the Anchorage Fire Department from 1974 until 2000.

"My roots are deep in the fire department. I had to include it in the budget and not have anyone delete it from the budget," Gatto said.

Contact Dawn De Busk at

352-2252 or dawn.debusk@

frontiersman.com.