Perrysburg Fire Department’s 1996 engine gets a makeover and upgrade

Perrysburg Fire Department engine was refurbished.

The Per­rys­burg Fire Depart­ment’s 1996 fire en­gine has re­ceived a make­over, and not just its color.

“Re­fur­bish­ment of a fire en­gine is much more than a sim­ple paint job,” Fire Chief Jeff Klein said of the for­merly green ve­hi­cle.

Depart­ment per­son­nel drove it to Ap­ple­ton, Wis., where the orig­i­nal builder, Pierce Man­u­fac­tur­ing, dis­as­sem­bled it, re­placed sev­eral com­po­nents, and put it all back to­gether again be­fore paint­ing it red.

A sig­nifi­cant up­grade was made to the en­gine’s lights, Chief Klein said. They had been a huge draw on the elec­tri­cal sys­tem, which would wear out the al­ter­na­tor. The re­fur­bished en­gine now has an LED sys­tem, which will save money on equip­ment re­place­ment, he said.

The proj­ect cost $300,000, sav­ing about half the cost of a new fire en­gine, he said. The money was drawn from the cap­i­tal im­prove­ment fund. The chief said an ad­van­tage of re­fur­bish­ing the ve­hi­cle is that while it looks and per­forms like a new one, it re­tains its 1996 ti­tle and there­fore falls un­der EPA emis­sion stan­dards for that year.

Another bo­nus is with its main­te­nance. “Our me­chan­ics are fa­mil­iar with the ve­hi­cle and do not need to re­learn a new piece of equip­ment,” Chief Klein said.

The re­fur­bished ve­hi­cle is ex­pected to now last an­other 15 years. The chief said its lon­gev­ity will be helped by the fire di­vi­sion’s pre­ven­­tive main­te­nance pro­gram, which in­cludes a yearly in­spec­tion with cer­ti­fied emer­gency ve­hi­cle tech­ni­cians.

The de­part­ment pur­chased a new en­gine in 2010, and the re­fur­bished 1996 ve­hi­cle is now of the same cal­i­ber, Chief Klein said. “For the first time in years, our pri­mary fire en­gines op­er­ate in a very sim­i­lar way from pump op­er­a­tions, foam, light tower, and power gen­er­a­tors,” he said.