Thayne’s new Class A Fire truck was formally inducted into the Fire Department’s fleet of vehicles Saturday, November 7 with a formal push back ceremony, joined by Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon.

The symbolic ceremony is a time honored tradition for fire departments when a new fire truck arrives for service.

“In the fire services, it’s full of traditions, this is a tradition with the fire service that stems back to even the 1800s,” explained Thayne Fire Chief Tedd Jenkins.

Looking back at the early fire responses that included the use of wagons, Jenkins said,
“After coming back from a call, they unhooked their horses and pushed it back into the fire station.”

He continued, “Even when the fire apparatuses became motorized, the reverses, weren’t that great, so they just had people pushing back into the fire stations; and the tradition developed.”

The Fire Chief added, “Tradition, the fire service is full of traditions, and like I said, this is just one of them, and it kind of stuck throughout history that whenever you get a new apparatus, you just push it back into the fire station and put it into service. Well, we rolled back a brand new fire truck today!”

The new fire truck is a key addition to the department serving the Mid Valley Fire District that includes Thayne, Star Valley Ranch and the area south of Etna.

“We got a brand new Class A fire truck pumper that is replacing one of our older trucks that was  just worn out and ready to be replaced; and we were putting a lot of money into it,” Jenkins explained. “In the long run, it was a lot cheaper to come up with this new engine — Engine 8 is going to be the call sign for this engine.”

Complete with the ability to pump 1,500 gallons of water per minute, “it’ll cover any structure fire, ” Jenkins advised. “It has 600 feet of hose on it for hooking up the hydrants and it has pumping capabilities. It’s a great improvement.”

He added, “This truck will go on all of our calls. It’ll be on crash scenes. We’ve got it set up with extrication equipment and it’s a four-wheel drive chassis so we can get into subdivisions in the wintertime where we struggled with that old pumper.”

Jenkins pointed out, “With all the subdivisions and the growth in this valley the snow doesn’t get taken care on some of these roads, and this truck will bust through quite a bit of snow to get to some of these places.”

Bringing the new truck to Thayne and the Mid Valley District has been an 18-month process that included custom designing the truck for Thayne and the western Wyoming region.

“Our board decided that they would like to replace this truck rather than put money into this older truck,” he recalled. “We actually contacted Rosenbauer, the manufacturer that built our last truck and they sent out a rep, and we went out to South Dakota and sat in on preconstruction, and we designed this truck from bumper to bumper. So, it is set up exactly how we want it.”

He added, “There are a lot of little things that we put on this truck that kind of gives what we want it with how we fight fire and what we need and for our area. We kind of almost custom designed it Mid Valley and Thayne.”

“Rosenbauer did a fantastic job of getting this truck put together and it was delivered to us at the end of September, and here we are now, we got it all set up, ready to go to  fight fire now.”

The fire chief acknowledged Governor Mark Gordon for attending the push back program.

“What a treat that was. You know, a little Thayne, fire department here in Star Valley, to have the governor come and help us push this truck in was really, a treat for us. We enjoyed  it; we had a great day. “

Addressing the growing needs of the Mid Valley Fire District, the Thayne Fire Department  is preparing for a move to the north end of the community.

“We’re working on a new fire station,” Jenkins said. “Anybody that was there today can understand the trucks are just getting bigger and wider and we’ve outgrown it and we’re trying to keep pace with the growth.”

Jenkins referenced the rapid and steady growth of Lincoln County. “We’re just trying to keep pace with that growth,” he said.