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Midwest Fire Equipment and Repair of Luverne traditionally displays a new fire truck during Luverne’s annual Hot Dog Night.
This year the featured truck has a local owner.
Hills Area Fire Department ordered the 2022 Freightliner almost 16 months ago. The city of Hills and Martin Township split the $273,000 cost.
After Thursday’s display, the truck will be put into service.
“It couldn’t be coming at a better time,” said Hills Area Fire Chief Jared Rozeboom, who spoke with the Hills City Council in July 2020 about replacing the department’s 1993 pumper.
Instead of continually repairing or replacing the pump on the almost 30-year-old truck, Rozeboom proposed investing in a new rig.
“It gets to a point where you start putting a lot of money into maintenance and upkeep,” he said.
Martin Township superintendents agreed in March 2021 to Midwest Fire’s low bid and to pay half of the truck’s cost in partnership with the city of Hills.
Rozeboom had assembled an inner-department committee to work on a design that fit the needs of the department and the size of the fire hall in Hills.
“One of the things we tried to do with this truck is to increase our capacities,” Rozeboom said.
However, the existing fire hall in Hills limited the truck’s height and length to just under 10 feet tall and 30 feet long.
With these dimensions, Midwest Fire needed to design a truck that increased water capacity from 1,000 to 2,000 gallons. More storage was added and the pump station is now outside the driver’s door rather than in the top center of the truck.
“Now they stand on the ground,” Rozeboom said. “That is a major change for us but we felt that the benefits will outweigh the change.”
The truck will also have emerging technology of a multiplex system built into the middle console inside the truck cab.
A computer screen allows the touch of a finger (or gloved hand) to control the lights, sirens, warning systems and close doors and/or secure equipment before moving the truck. Previously a switch had to be turned on or off.
“It’s the brains of the system,” said Midwest Fire’s Joe Hlushak. “It’s new to us and is fairly new to the industry.”
Hlushak is the project manager of the Hills Area Fire Department truck and made sure its color matched the department’s other three trucks.
In recent weeks Midwest Fire has completed fire trucks for other departments in black, lime green, orange and the more traditional red.
Midwest Fire finishes five to seven trucks each month, and the Luverne company is on track to set a record of 66 completed this year. Hlushak said the normal number is 55.
A redesigned shop floor and other time-saving process improvements increase the assembly flow.
While each truck is assembled to specifications of each fire department, the various fire truck components are purchased within the Tri-State area.
One of the final steps is applying decals.
On Thursday, July 7, Quality Printing of Luverne placed the “Hills Area Fire Department” and “No. 133” decals on the truck.
Hills resident and Midwest Fire employee Justin Maciejak painted parts of the yellow Hills Area fire truck.
“It’s cool that it gets to work in your community,” he said of the new truck destined for his hometown.