By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS — Maybe by Christmas Yachats-area residents will be seeing a new – well, not exactly new – fire engine racing to emergency calls.
With an $8,000 check from an anonymous donor, the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District has purchased a 1994 engine/pumper from the Newport Fire Department. When outfitted – maybe by the end of the month — it will replace a 1971 engine that was failing and had been parked at the district’s substation up the Yachats River.
“It’s a workhorse engine,” said district administrator Frankie Petrick.
Depending on how they are configured, new fire engines can easily cost more than $750,000. Most rural fire departments rely on second-hand but well-maintained engines from larger organizations.
The Yachats district knew its upriver engine was failing but didn’t have the funds to replace it. Petrick’s proposal last spring to buy an engine from a department in Washington state for $25,000 was rejected by the district board because its equipment replacement fund had just $22,000 in it.
It took a bit of good fortune to land the engine months later.
Firefighter Joe Schwab happened to spot an online message that Newport was ready to declare the 27-year-old engine as surplus and sell it on a state website. Alerted to Yachats’ interest, Newport brought it down for an inspection by firefighters and board members Ed Hallahan and Drew Tracy. They all declared it a good fit for the district.
Newport said it would take $8,000 for the engine – something that Yachats didn’t readily have.
That afternoon, the district received a cashier’s check for $8,000 from an anonymous donor.
“Imagine our surprise,” Petrick said. “I have no idea who dropped it off.”
Yachats’ old engine – called Engine 15 – will be sold as surplus.
Engine 14, which now serves as the “first out” engine in Yachats was built in 1999, but is not as versatile as the new one from Newport. The new engine was originally custom built for the city of Bellevue, Wash. fire department and has 5-inch hose connections on all four sides, instead of just the front and back, like Engine 14. It carries 750 gallons of water and its pump can handle 1,750 gallons a minute.
“It’s a Swiss Army knife of an engine,” said Schwab.
Petrick says she initially plans to rotate the newer engines between the main station and the upriver station so they are in use more regularly.
But the new engine didn’t come with much on it. The Yachats district has hoses for it, but Petrick said she will need “to scape some money out of the budget” to buy nozzles, adapters, hand tools, do some wiring and either purchase or use surplus radios.
The addition means the district has three functioning engines, Petrick said.
“It will solve our equipment need for the immediate future,” she said.
The district has been struggling financially for three years and voters last month turned down a big new levy request designed to solve that issue. The board plans to ask for another levy in May, but must decide by Feb. 25 how much to ask for and specify how it would be used.