Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

Fremont Fire Chief Todd Bernt takes a look at the department's new fire engine, set to start service in the next week.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine, which will hit the streets in the next week, features a remote control nozzle and command light, which aim to improve safety for firefighters.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine sits inside Rosenbauer Group's plant in Wyoming, Minnesota, prior to completion last year.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine, which will hit the streets in the next week, features a remote control nozzle and command light, which aim to improve safety for firefighters.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine, which will hit the streets in the next week, features a larger front bumper that contains a hose lay for storage.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine, which will hit the streets in the next week, features a remote control nozzle and command light, which aim to improve safety for firefighters.

After more than a year in the works, the Fremont Fire Department is gearing up to get its new fire truck on the streets.

“This truck is bigger, and we’ve got a lot of storage,” Fire Chief Todd Bernt said. “And there’s just a lot of different features on it that really save a lot of time for the firefighters and provide firefighter safety.”

The truck’s purchase was approved by the Fremont City Council in September 2020. It will replace the oldest of the department’s three fire trucks, an E-ONE model from 1995.

“We try to keep fire engines for about 25 years and try to keep them on that rotation of getting new ones, just because of wear and tear and maintenance costs go up as fire engines get older,” Bernt said.

After the city’s capital improvement plan budgeted $571,000 for the vehicle, Bernt said the department met with Rosenbauer Group, a fire-service vehicle manufacturer, and Heiman Fire, its dealer.

“We sat down with them and we sort of explained what we wanted,” he said. “We wanted to put a lot of firefighter safety involved in it.”

During the construction process, Bernt and several firefighters went to Wyoming and Minnesota in June to inspect the chassis before the building of the truck’s body.

Additionally, Bernt and others returned to the plant to conduct a final inspection on the truck in January, a month after its completion.

“We just go through every aspect of the truck, we check every part of the spec that we have just to make sure it’s to our specifications,” he said. “I know when we went up last month we did find some changes, which they were able to fix.”

As the department wanted to focus on firefighter safety with the new truck, Bernt said it features a remote control nozzle located on the top.

With the department’s two other trucks from 2003 and 2010, Bernt said firefighters have to climb to the nozzle to manually operate it during a fire.

“That means we’ve got to get people on top of the truck, and there’s a chance of them falling off the truck and getting injured,” he said. “So by keeping the firefighter off the truck and operating it by remote control by the ground, we can probably save an injury just by that.”

Additionally, the truck also features a command light located on top of its cab to assist with fires at night, which Bernt said can be a dangerous situation if the scene is not properly lit.

“When we show up at a nighttime operation and we want to light up the scene, we have a remote control and the light will actually come up from the top of the cab and we can turn the light on and direct it where we need it to light up the scene,” he said. “So those are the two big items for firefighter safety.”

The new fire engine also has a hose lay in the front bumper, which Bernt said is larger than normal, and a smaller, 1-inch booster reel.

“We can use that for some of the smaller fires, grass fires, stuff of that nature that we don’t really need to pull a big fire hose off,” he said. “Then we have another cross-lay that we have in the bumper so that there’s easy access to when we need those.”

On Jan. 26, the fire engine was delivered to the fire station. To prepare for getting it in service, Bernt said the department had a vendor install its mobile radios inside.

“There’s just a lot of things taken off the fire engine that we took out of service, that we traded in to put on this,” he said. “So we’re hoping to finish mounting tools here and put all of our hoses on it within the next couple of days.”

In the meantime, Bernt said he and the others are fans of the new engine, which he called a “sharp-looking truck.”

“I know we had some guys here practice driving it, and they said it just drives smoothly,” he said. “It’s just a very well-built truck that handles nicely on the road.”

But most importantly, Bernt said he’s excited for the truck’s new features to help out FFD’s crew.

“I think from the grand scheme of things,” he said, “it’ll just keep our firefighters a lot safer.”

Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

The Maple Township treasurer addressed reimbursements and communication matters when the Dodge County Board of Supervisors met.

The Fremont City Council unanimously approved a contract with Sawyer Construction Company to start making permanent repairs to a levee southwe…

Even after the city’s comprehensive plan is finalized, Nikolas Davis of Houseal Lavigne and Associates said work won’t be truly done.

The creation of AZ + Co. came from Andrea Zahourek just planning her four children’s birthday parties.

Having worked with people who had to decide between eating and keeping their home, Tanya Cluck of Care Corps’ LifeHouse said All Doors Lead Ho…

The Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District (LENRD) will facilitate a public open house regarding the Maple Creek Watershed Plan - Environmen…

Fremont Fire Chief Todd Bernt takes a look at the department's new fire engine, set to start service in the next week.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine, which will hit the streets in the next week, features a remote control nozzle and command light, which aim to improve safety for firefighters.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine sits inside Rosenbauer Group's plant in Wyoming, Minnesota, prior to completion last year.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine, which will hit the streets in the next week, features a remote control nozzle and command light, which aim to improve safety for firefighters.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine, which will hit the streets in the next week, features a larger front bumper that contains a hose lay for storage.

Fremont Fire Department's new fire engine, which will hit the streets in the next week, features a remote control nozzle and command light, which aim to improve safety for firefighters.

Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.