News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Roughly $52,000 worth of equipment for the Algood Fire Department was approved by the city council Tuesday night.
This purchase includes 10 complete turnout gear sets and three complete self-contained breathing apparatus kits. City Administrator Keith Morrison said this was necessary for the department to catch up on equipment that was nearing expiration.
“The intent is to get this caught up this year and next year,” Morrison said. “And then the third year, we can probably take a year off and then the year after that start buying about two sets a year and try and minimize this cost. To where as we replace equipment, it’s not such a big hit.”
Morrison said this is part of long term planning for the fire department and there needs to be different sized gear available for future fire fighters to be outfitted. Morrison said that Algood’s new fire truck will also come with additional equipment.
“The gear on the truck on the truck is going to be five SCBA masks and 10 bottles,” Morrison said. “So there will be some on the truck. So we focused more on turnout gear this time than the SCBA packs because we knew we had five coming with the truck already. The way that truck is set up is those packs are built into the seat, so as you’re climbing in the truck and going down the road to get to the fire you can already be suiting up on the way.”
Chief Victor Jones said during Monday night’s work session that the current turnout gear only had one year left before expiration. Morrison said Monday night, during his eight years working in Algood, no turnout gear had been purchased for the department.
