By DAVE SCHULTZ
After Fire Chief Don Craig submitted a capital improvement plan for the Bluffton Fire Department last month, the members of the Bluffton Board of Public Works and Safety decided to hire an outside firm to take a look at the department’s various pieces of equipment, just to get the opinion of an outsider expert.
What Craig and other city officials found out from the review was rather eye-opening.
The company, Emergency Vehicle Response, said three of the department’s vehicles were above their weight limits. The three vehicles — the department’s grass rig, a 2019 Ford-550 referred to as Engine 3, and a 2021 tanker — have now been placed out of service.
Craig presented EVR’s preliminary report to the Board of Works Tuesday and will bring it to the members of the Bluffton Common Council next week. There are some remedies possible, but they would either mean spending more money on the vehicles or reducing the weight.
Craig was clearly not in favor of the latter option.
“A fire truck with no tanks, no hoses, and no equipment is not a fire truck,” he said.
One of the trucks is the grass rig, that is built on a Ford F-350 pickup truck. It is different from the other two in that it was bought and built locally. A local shop built it but no one paid attention to the weight when it was completed.
Craig said it was 2,000 pounds — one ton — over its weight limit.
“The biggest weight on the truck is the water, 275 gallons,” Craig said. When the vehicles were taken to the IMI facility west of town to be weighed, it was found that even with no water in the truck, the vehicle was still 200 pounds over its approved weight. It was not until the hoses and the extinguishers were removed from it that it made weight.
A grass rig with no water and no hoses “does us no good as a brush fire vehicle,” he said.
The problems with the other two trucks seem to be related to their manufacturer, HME of Wyoming, Mich.
Engine 3’s status is the most interesting. The builder says the truck is rated at 22,000 pounds but Ford’s sticker on the truck says 19,500. Craig said HME put a sticker — the company said with Ford’s approval — that superseded the automaker’s limit.
Regardless, the actual weight of the truck on IMI’s scales was 22,190.
HME said Ford had rated the truck for a higher weight but EVR wants written confirmation of that.
“It is grossly overweighted,” Craig said. “If a firefighter were to drive that truck and someone were to run out in front of it, and he (the firefighter) couldn’t stop it, we would be liable because we knew there was a problem and we didn’t fix it.”
The third vehicle was also built by HME and its problem is that the weight on the rear axle is 1,800 pounds over its allowed weight. Craig said he’d been given three options to alleviate the problem — add weight ballast to the front to balance the truck, put a larger rear axle on the truck, or reduce the tank from 3,500 gallons of water to 2,500 gallons of water.
City Attorney Tony Crowell, who was not present Tuesday, will be asked to do his “due diligence” negotiating with HME on the two trucks, Board of Works member Scott Mentzer said.
Craig said that EVR will produce a full report which will be completed during March.
“I’m sure Bluffton’s not the first department this has happened to,” said Board of Works member Josh Hunt.
“Yes,” Craig said. “This is a lesson for all fire departments.”
The vehicles will sit while the status of each truck is resolved. Craig said the Bluffton Fire Department will be dependent on mutual aid from other area departments in the interim.
Mentzer and Hunt were the only two Board of Works members present as Mayor John Whicker was absent.
daves@news-banner.com
