Homer Township Fire District Builds New Tanker

Homer Township Fire District (IL) is excited to be building a new tanker —a Sutphen tanker—working with Legacy Fire Apparatus as their dealer. A recent visit to the Sutphen East facility, now in Lake Ariel, PA., provided Homer Township's build committee members with a view of their hard work of planning and design beginning to come to fruition. This new pumper/tanker will replace a 1995 GMC Top Kick/ S&S Tanker that was unexpectedly removed from service due to a catastrophic tank failure. Chief Chris Locacius stated “40% of the fire district is unhydranted so having a tanker is extremely important,”

The new Sutphen commercial tanker will have 2000 gallons of water, a 1500 GPM Hale pump, standard pumper ground ladders, and a Foam Pro 2001 Foam system. The foam tank is a special feature that was important to Homer Township Fire District. Chief Locacius “We use AR-AFFF for hazardous materials and since a portion of I-355 expressway is in our district, having foam for potential accidents with semi-trucks and fuel tankers, we knew the foam tank would be extremely beneficial to our community.”  Chief Locacius plans to staff the tanker with at least two and potentially three at times.

Another priority was to work with a vendor that was able to design the tanker to combat rust and corrosion which is a growing issue in the Midwest. “We have had previous issues with other vendors, rust being a huge problem. We knew whoever manufactures the tanker, we needed to know first how they can protect against corrosion. It was very important to learn the process of combating corrosion and ultimately the reason we went with a Sutphen and Legacy as our dealer.” Sutphen offers stainless steel manufacturing which helps prevent these issues.

Homer Township Fire District was successful in obtaining a FEMA grant to purchase the tanker. Expect to see this new addition to their fleet in service in early August.