A new fire engine for Pawlet, by Pawlet!
Attack 543 is the newest addition to our apparatus fleet, entering service October 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 than a very large truck, especially on soft roads. Attack 543 is 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 features 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. A543 will replace B544, our 21-year-old F450 brush truck.
Want to meet A543 in person? Join us at the firehouse on Saturday, October 18th from 2-4pm. See the truck up close and meet the firefighters who built it! At 4pm we will have a brief ceremony to welcome this truck to service.