East Providence Fire Department takes delivery of three new engines

EAST PROVIDENCE — Fire Department Chief Oscar Elmasian and City Manager Tim Chapman were joined by representatives of C&S Specialty Inc. Thursday morning, May 4, at Pierce Field in unveiling a fleet of new engine pumper trucks for East Providence.

The pieces of apparatus were built by Spartan Emergency Response Vehicles of Sioux Falls, S.D. The city purchased the pumpers from C&S, a local dealership located in North Smithfield, which made delivery last week.

The vehicles replace Engines 1, 2 and 3 currently housed in Stations 1, 2 and 3, respectively, at the department’s headquarters on Broadway in the center of the city, Bullocks Point Avenue in Riverside and North Broadway in Rumford.

Chief Elmasian said the current engines located at Stations 1 and 2 will be used as reserves. Engine 3 is being decommissioned.

“The necessity of the new engines is that our front-line pieces were aging and no longer viable,” Chief Elmasian explained. “We were also facing increase costs of maintaining our reserve fleet and repairing our front-line apparatus.”

The pumpers were paid for through an appropriation of the city council as part of the 2014 fiscal year budget. The cost of the vehicles is approximately $1.5 million, according to the chief. The new engines have an expected life-span of 20-25 years, he continued. The new pumpers “meet industry standards of today,” he added.

“This shows the city takes public safety very seriously and is trying to be fiscally sound in order to keep operational expenses at a minimum,” Chief Elmasian said.

The new engines were “speced out” by a committee of EPFD personnel, the chief said, noting the firefighters involved “spent countless hours making sure the vehicles were ergonomically designed” to meet the demands and needs of department employees. The hope is the engines will help reduce potential injury to firefighters, which have often resulted in extended time away from duty and raised the department’s overtime costs.

Chief Elmasian added, “These are the tools we need to do our job.”