The following article, without an author, appeared in the Monday, July 18, 2011 Edition of The St. Albans Messenger.
From left, St. Albans businessmen Rett Heald and Tom Hungerford stand next to Fairfax Fire Chief Justin Hayes and members of the Fairfax Fire Dept. in front of a ladder truck that the businessmen acquired and donated to the department. Photo is courtesy of The Fairfax Fire Department.City Truck Goes To Fairfax – Businessmen make it happen
FAIRFAX – The Fairfax Fire Department and the Town of Fairfax have just added a ladder truck to their firefighting arsenal.
Thanks to a generous donation made by Tom Hungerford of Hungerford Insurance and Rett Heald of Heald Funeral Home of st. Albans, the donation of a 1982 Peter Pirsch 100’ ladder truck has been made to the Town of Fairfax fire Department.
The truck served the City of St. Albans but was recently replaced there by a new ladder truck, obtained through a federal grant. The truck was purchased by the two business owners and after careful consideration of other Franklin county fire departments, they decided that Fairfax would be best suited as the new home for this piece of emergency services equipment said Fairfax Fire Chief Justin Hayes in a press release.
As part of the donation process, the truck underwent and passed a stringent National Fire Protection Association, five-year test. This test concluded that the chassis and ladder are suit5able for the fire service and will continue to require annual recertification's conducted by an independent testing company.
According to local fire officials, the ladder truck will allow the Fairfax Fire department to expand its capabilities for accessing numerous structures within the community which before, was done with labor intensive ground ladders. It also will provide a safe elevated work platform to perform rescues, roof ventilation, chimney fires, elevated master streams at large fires, as well as hazmat decontamination operations.
Fairfax Fire is fortunate to have three former career firefighters all past employees of the City of St. Albans Fire Department who are familiar with this truck's maintenance and operations, said the press release.
The truck formally entered service for the Town of Fairfax on June 27, 2011.
