05-02-2022 Council Work Session Packet

Home Search

With this news, it really changed my thoughts on our long-term plan with this truck and our replacement of our 1992/1993 water tenders. The long-term plan was to use Aerial 11 as an Engine until we replaced the first of the pair of Tenders. The plan would require building a new Tender / Pumper. These trucks would include a larger cab for up to five firefighters. It would include a 1500 gallon per minute fire pump. A water tank that could carry up to 3000 gallons of water. This truck would also score for ISO as an Engine. Our current Tenders do not score as Engines with ISO. After we received our new Pumper/ Tenders, the plan was to liquidate Aerial 11. But now with Aerial 11 being placed out of service and not usable, this brings another concern. I investigated with three different fire apparatus builders (Custom Fire Apparatus of Osceola, Wisconsin, Rosenbauer Fire Apparatus of Wyoming Minnesota, and Fire Safety USA of Rochester, Minnesota.) what it would cost and how long it would take to move our current plan up to replace one of our tenders with a new Tender / Pumper. All three manufacturers were clear that the build cost has increased 25-30%. But the real bad news was the earliest we would see a truck after ordering is 30-36 months. They also stated this is today and they do not know what the future will be with components and steel shortages predicted in the future. I have looked both locally and nationally for a quality used tender / pumper. I was not able to find a quality apparatus. I could find other tenders that are 30 years old, but no pumper / tenders. I was having a difficult time finding fire engines. I found a few and the price was astonishing. The few that I did find had high mileage and had been well used and the sale price was between $200-300,000. With replacing Aerial 11 with an Engine, it only fixes one of our apparatus needs and that is the fire pump capacity. It does not answer our need to have reliable mobile water to fight fires in areas of our City that are not on our municipal water system. I was able to find a local engine that is available through Custom Fire Apparatus for $185- $200,000. This apparatus would only answer the deficiency of the fire pump from Aerial 11. This would not allow us to move the tender replacements down the road. If anything, with what has been learned with the supply chain issues and delayed delivery of finished fire apparatus to 30-36 months, we would be wise to order the replacements for both tenders sooner than later. The timing of this is further complicated with our scheduled Insurance Service Office (ISO) audit this summer. ISO is a company that rates fire departments and the surrounding communities on how well equipped they are to respond to and suppress fires when they occur. This rating is used by some homeowner insurance providers to establish homeowners insurance rates. During our last ISO audit in 2017 our ISO score improved from a 5/9 to 4/4Y, it should be noted that that ISO rating system the lower the number the better prepared a fire department is to conduct fire suppression services. With the reduction in pumping capacity that is a result of Al being out of service we anticipated that our ISO will not be as good as reported in the 2017 audit. We have a couple of options. Option 1 Order two new pumper / tenders with delivery in three years. This would likely result in a negative impact on our ISO rating. It would confirm to the long-term plan for fire apparatus replacement and would reduce the size of the fire apparatus fleet. The estimated cost per pumper / tender would be between $800,000 and $900,000 given the current manufacturer's pricing. ONE VISION. ONE MISSION. LINO LAKES PUBLIC SAFETY DEPARTMENT.