The Torrington Volunteer Fire Department will hold a push-in event for it's new Tower 1 truck March 18.
The Torrington Volunteer Fire Department expanded its fleet in mid-January with the purchase of its first tower truck. Now the department is inviting the public to attend a push-in ceremony for Tower 1 Friday, March 18 at 4 p.m. at the Torrington Fire Station, located at 2001 West C St.
Firefighter and public information officer Chuck Kenyon said the event will be the first for the department and will feature speeches from Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, Torrington Mayor Randy Adams and the chairman of the Rural Fire District.
How did firefighters maneuver a fire truck into the fire hall before vehicles were motorized? While horse-drawn vehicles and hand-drawn pumpers worked around town, using those methods to park in a bay was impossible. So firefighters used their muscles to push the truck into the bay.
Safety Division Chief Brad Mechem with the Torrington Volunteer Fire Department learns how to operate the bucket ladder on the new fire engine the department purchased through a grant. The truck is the only bucket truck at the department and will allow firefighters to fight structure fires better.
“It’s called either a push-in or a push-back,” Kenyon said. “It’s a traditional fire department ceremony. It dates back to the horse-drawn fire apparatus where the members of the fire department had to push the engine back into the fire station because the horses couldn’t back it up.”
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In a post on the St. Charles, Illinois, city website firefighter paramedic Stephen Dries said the tradition dates back to the late 1800s when fire departments used hand-drawn pumpers and horse-drawn equipment.
“Upon returning to the station after a fire call, the horses could not easily back the equipment into the station,” he wrote. “So they were disconnected from the fire equipment and firefighters would push the equipment back in to the bays themselves.”
Kenyon said they have a joke in the fire service where some of their operations are a “400 years tradition unaltered by progress” and the push-back event is one tradition that has stood the test of time.
Mayor Randy Adams said the idea to purchase a tower truck arose shortly after he was elected mayor.
“We had three events — all three of which required us to ask the Scottsbluff Fire Department to bring their fire truck to Torrington to help us fight these fires,” Adams said. “It made me get to thinking seriously about the fact that our volunteer fire department and our volunteer firemen needed something like that to keep them safe in these very dangerous situations.”
Seventy-five percent of the cost to purchase Tower 1 came from a state grant that totaled $1.4 million. The other 25% was contributions from the City of Torrington and the Rural District Fire #3. The two entities each contributed $175,000 toward the $350,000 needed to match the grant. The 43-foot-long, 10-feet-high, 8-feet-wide and 76,000-pound tower truck will aid the firefighters in various situations.
“It will provide a much safer and much more secure platform for our volunteer firemen to work out of,” Adams said. “It’s not only going to be used for high second or third floor access, but also will provide us access sometimes when we have to be out in the street a long ways away from the building where we could stretch out over a roof that’s on fire, for example.”
Adams said the engine can also be used along the river to rescue someone and various scenarios where access is a challenge.
The event will offer the community a chance to see the truck and fire station. Following the push-in Kenyon said they plan to pull the truck back out for a demonstration.
Parking will be along E. 21st Avenue and around the city park.
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March 16, 2022 at 09:00AM
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Torrington Fire to hold traditional push-in ceremony for new fire engine - Scottsbluff Star Herald
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