New 'Squad Truck' On The Horizon For BFD

City fire officials plan to acquire a new "squad" vehicle for their fleet.

The squad truck is a hybrid of a fire department's key vehicles, with the boxy front end of an ambulance but the storage space of a fire engine for tools and equipment.

City firefighters don't have an ambulance, but they do assist Hernando County Fire Rescue on medical calls. To get to the scene, they either ride an engine or a squad vehicle.

The two squad vehicles currently on the fleet are considered "light-duty" and have been on the road for a combined 16 years.

When Squad 62 became eligible for replacement last year, Fire Chief Tim Mossgrove and his district chiefs began kicking around the idea of swapping two trucks for one.

"I said, 'Let's see if we can do it better,'" District Chief Michael Dow said in an interview Friday.

From their perspective, it made better sense to halve fuel, insurance and maintenance costs for the squad fleet. It also provides the opportunity to upgrade and add needed equipment such as a winch, onboard generator and an apparatus to fill air tanks, Mossgrove said.

The fire department will make the $185,000 purchase with the same money it uses for all new vehicles. Each time another vehicle is purchased, the annual payment is doubled with half going to the lender and the other part to the fund. That way, when the vehicle is ready for retirement, there will already be money on hand to make the purchase, Mossgrove said.

When the new squad vehicle arrives in town, one of the old trucks will be traded-in and the other will be converted into a brush truck and relegated to a "secondary" role.