The oldest fire truck in Estevan has a new home.
The Estevan Fire Rescue Service has relocated the truck, a 1928 American Lafrance unit, from the Souris Valley Museum to the fire department’s building on 13th Avenue.
The move happened on Sept. 11. Extreme Towing assisted with the move.
“We were looking at trying to get that into a running state, but it (the museum) wasn’t the place or the facility to try to do any mechanical fixing. We decided we were going to trailer it … to bring it back to the fire station,” said Fire Chief Dale Feser.
The truck had been at the Souris Valley Museum since the museum opened in 2000. It was loaned to the museum, and the museum’s employees were responsible for taking care of it.
When the fire department moved to its new home late last year, it had the space to house the fire truck.
Museum curator Mark Veneziano was able to help out with getting the fire truck out of the museum, and the move to the fire hall was pretty smooth, Feser said.
Now the 1928 American Lafrance is located with the fire department’s other trucks. It will be cleaned up, and some of the retired firefighters like Lowell Holmgren, who used to perform mechanical maintenance on the fire truck when it was still in service, will try to get it into an operational state.
“Once that is accomplished, we’re going to bring it back around from the apparatus floor and have it on display in the showroom area,” said Feser.
A mechanical assessment hasn’t been completed on the old truck, but Feser said the retired firefighters believe it shouldn’t take too much work to get it up and running.
“When you’re looking at a fire engine from 1928, you just have your bare, basic bones of mechanical internal combustion engines there,” said Feser. “As long as we have fuel going to it, and we have oil in the cylinders and good sparkplugs, everything should be fine.”
The truck will be among the centrepiece items in a firefighting museum inside the fire hall.
Feser expects it will be a couple of weeks before the fire truck is ready to be displayed.
