A new fire engine for Pawlet, by Pawlet!
Attack 543 is the newest addition to our apparatus fleet, slated to enter service in the fall of 2025. “Attack” is short for “initial attack.” These vehicles are small fire trucks, like a pumper but with less capacity to pump or carry water. They are light, relatively nimble multi-purpose vehicles, which can go places a 40,000lb engine cannot, and are safer to operate on soft roads than a very large truck. Attack 543 is being built on a Ford Super Duty chassis right here in Pawlet, with our firefighters as the primary contractors! This represents a tremendous cost savings to our taxpayers. The truck will feature a 200 gallon water tank and a 340gpm gasoline-powered fire pump, powerful enough to pump a structural firefighting hoseline, or to supply water for firefighting operations. This vehicle will provide us with seating for 5, giving us the crew cab our 2-door commercial-chassis pumpers lack. It will offer us a very capable wildland fire protection platform, plus the ability to initiate or support structural firefighting operations. It is designed to be the optimal vehicle for roadway incident response, which will enable us to use this smaller vehicle instead of the pumpers in this role. When it enters service, A543 will replace B544, our 21-year-old F450 brush truck.