A weekend fire played into City Council’s decision to let the Sycamore Fire Department expedite the purchase of a new fire engine.
The council unanimously approved a consideration to buy a replacement fire engine through a purchasing cooperative agreement during its meeting Monday. The department will work with one of two cooperatives to purchase an engine with a water capacity of 3,000 gallons for an estimated $550,000. It will replace the 30-year-old Engine 4.
Assistant Fire Chief Todd Turner told council members that it didn’t matter whether firefighters who responded to Saturday morning’s fire had a new truck, they would have run out of water. However, an engine with a higher capacity than Engine 4’s 2,000 gallons would have helped, he said.
Firefighters responded at 3 a.m. Saturday to a fire at a Sycamore home. No injuries were reported, but the fire was estimated to have caused $150,000 in damage.