Morgan County Fire Department purchases new ladder truck

With homes being built taller and taller and the three-story high school, Morgan County Fire Department found it necessary to have a ladder truck in their station. 

In the past, Dave Rich, MCFD’s former fire chief, and MCFD’s current Fire Marshall, attended several county council meetings over the years asking for funding to purchase a ladder truck. With new ladder trucks costing upward of $1.9 million this reality seemed far out of reach. With that being the case for the department, they tried to make do with the equipment they had to set themselves up for success. 

Most fires require a ladder to put firefighters safely on a roof for vertical ventilation. Ladders are also used to shoot water down on the fire versus trying to shoot water up to the fire. According to Fire Chief Boyd Carrigan, a ladder is an essential piece of equipment, and getting firefighters above the fire is important.

Carrigan described Morgan as an island of sorts, “We have Weber County on one side, which has several fire departments, with a large population, same thing with Summit County,” he said. “But we're kind of stuck in the middle of them and we have mutual and automatic aid with both [counties] but it takes a while for them to get to our island so we’ve always kind of just had to rely on ourselves for the first 20-30 minutes of any structure fire and that includes the ladders. Over the past several years, we’ve had to use ladders from other agencies outside of ours because we’ve never been able to have funding to do so.”

When one of Morgan’s volunteer firefighters, who also works for Syracuse Fire Department, heard that Syracuse was getting a new ladder truck and their old ladder truck would be sold through auction, Carrigan contacted the Syracuse fire chief personally to see if MCFD could just buy it asking them to “give me a price, we need it.” Carrigan was told no because Syracuse policy is it has to go up for auction.

Because Syracuse’s new ladder truck was about a year away, that gave MCFD time to approach the council to see if they could come up with the funding. Syracuse’s old ladder would have a starting bid of $100,000 which Carrigan said is very affordable for a ladder. The council agreed that if they stayed close to $100,000, they could afford it. 

With a ladder seeming to be more within reach, Carrigan, Rich, along with Fire Warden Dave Vickers and Deputy Chief Shawn Waller went to look at the ladder truck that Syracuse was selling to see if it was something they wanted. Carrigan said they were amazed at how well they had taken care of the truck which was very affordable for Morgan. With only 36,000 miles, they thought it would work well for the department’s needs.

The auction was now the obstacle for Morgan. Three other agencies with deeper pockets had also expressed interest in the ladder truck. The starting bid was $100,000 but Syracuse was hoping to get $145,000. While hoping for the best, yet feeling discouraged, time passed and the other agencies who wanted the truck could no longer wait, so they dropped out of the bidding to purchase different ladder trucks.

Once the truck went up for auction, Morgan put a bid in of $100,000 and then waited for the bidding to close. In the end, Morgan was the only agency to put in a bid.

Over the summer, the truck that only came with ladders had to be stocked with new equipment, and firefighters trained on the apparatus before it could be put into service in October and has been used at four structure fires.

With Morgan County Fire Department the owners of the 2002 Pierce with a 75-foot ladder and a 500-gallon tank to hold water, a renewed interest came to the department. In July, the department trained several new firefighters for Morgan, Mountain Green, and North Summit.

Over the last couple of years, MCFD has restructured the department which also includes EMS. The department is run by Fire Chief Boyd Carrigan with the command staff of Fire Marshall Dave Rich; Fire Warden Dave Vickers; Deputy Chief of Fire Ops, Shawn Waller and Deputy Chief of EMS Ops, Erica White.   

The department is currently staffed with 53 men and women including the command staff with 14 basic EMTs, 27 Advanced EMTs, two Paramedics, 20 structure firefighters, and 22 wildland firefighters. MCFD is one of the few agencies that does not require volunteer EMTs and firefighters to be cross-certified; however, recently, the county has allowed MCFD to hire part-time firefighters who also have to have basic and advanced EMT certs. This allows for emergency responders to be at the fire station Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for quick response in any emergencies. 

For any medical call, the brush truck is the first to respond to start patient care until the ambulance staffed with three volunteer personnel arrives and takes over patient care and transport. This has cut response times from 13 minutes down to six minutes for both fire and medical calls. 

Once an ambulance goes out, a second crew is assembled with additional volunteer EMTs. If a crew cannot be assembled, the part-time firefighters become the second crew if another call comes in for an ambulance.

For fire calls during the week, engine 121 is the first due engine with part-time firefighters. The ladder is the second apparatus out with volunteers. During the evenings and weekends, volunteer firefighters are on call with all other available firefighters responding to a call. 

Carrigan wishes to thank the county commission for the support they gave the department. “We have an incredible staff, we are super lucky to have such incredible people,” he said. “We are a pretty close tight-knit family.” Carrigan also wants the community to know that while it is hard for people to volunteer because of work and family commitments, people within MCFD work together to help each other cover shifts and answer the call to come to the station when a call is dispatched.

For those who have not had a chance to see Ladder 121, Santa Claus will be arriving Saturday, Dec. 2, on top of the ladder to Christmas on Commercial Street at 2:15 p.m. λ