Redmond firefighters train with new fire engine

Redmond firefighters held some special training Wednesday evening with an important new piece of gear, with features that could help save lives.

The fire department’s training chief talked about how the new fire engine will allow firefighters to help more people. The training session was held to orient engineers and fire officers with the truck’s features.

“We’re going through the motions of what we do if somebody was trapped in a vehicle that’s on its side, or a vehicle that needs to be stabilized,” said Training Chief Jake Campbell.

The new engine has only been used the last couple weeks on a few car and fire incidents. This training gives firefighters the opportunity to learn how it operates and where things are stored.

Another feature of this truck is that it serves two different functions: a firefighting engine and rescue vehicle. Either side of the engine serves a different purpose, based on the incident the fire department is called to.

Other features that set it apart from older fire trucks are the number of lights, especially the light tower on top of the truck, pre-plumbed hose lines and more stabilization cribbing for vehicles.Another amenity is a winch system.

“We can take a winch cable, attach it to a vehicle that’s on its side, in conjunction with our vehicle stabilization struts, which are basically long metal tools that we can attach to the side of a vehicle to stabilize it,” Campbell said. “The two together make it extremely stable and safe for our people to be next to it, so it takes away the risk of it falling.”

While the engine is well-equipped to handle incidents at night, it can be dispatched for any call from a house fire to a brush fire, someone stuck in an elevator, car crashes or medical emergencies,

In many of those cases, its advanced features just might save some lives down the road.