Escambia Fire Rescue Dedicates New Special Ops Truck At Push-in Ceremony

June 9, 2019

Escambia County Fire Rescue celebrated the arrival of the new Squad 3 apparatus during a traditional push-in ceremony on Saturday. This truck was built to facilitate ECFR’S Special Operations response and fire suppression operations throughout Escambia County, along with operations across the region as needed.

At the ceremony, Station 3 firefighters continued the longstanding fire service tradition of pushing the apparatus into the station bay, commemorating the arrival of a new apparatus into service. Pastor Gordon Godfrey of Marcus Pointe Baptist Church provided the invocation, and the McGuire’s Pipe Band led a short procession behind the ECFR Honor Guard.

For a photo gallery, click here.

Squad 3 is a brand-new Pierce PUC built in Appleton, Wisconsin. Along with a four-person crew, it carries equipment needed to facilitate heavy rescue, extrication, entrapment, medical, high/low angle and fire suppression emergencies.

Squad 3 replaces an ECFR engine and rescue apparatus that both responded to a charter bus crash in March 2018 on Interstate 10, which involved a bus falling into a 50-foot ravine while transporting high school students. The crew used rope rescue techniques to evacuate several seriously injured students from the ravine and provided extrication expertise to rescue and remove trapped victims from the wreckage. This Technical Rescue Team is the only one of its sort between Mobile, and Tallahassee.

The old engine and rescue apparatus will be placed into reserve status to be utilized when front line equipment is down for maintenance or repairs.

Squad 3 is located at Escambia County Fire Rescue Station 3, the Brent station on North W Street.

Photos by Barbara Rigby and others for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News