Sycamore to purchase city’s first ladder truck for $1.4M

SYCAMORE – The Sycamore Fire Department soon will have a ladder-equipped fire truck for the first time in city history.

The Sycamore City Council voted to authorize an about $1.4 million purchase on Monday, The 5-1 vote gave City Manager Michael Hall the go-ahead to purchase a 2022 KME 103-foot Quint Ladder Truck from Brindlee Mountain Fire Apparatus, a used fire truck sales and service company near Huntsville, Alabama, according to city documents.

Sycamore Fire Chief Bart Gilmore said large buildings, like Seymour Paint Company’s buildings in the 900 block of Crosby Ave. – where two workers were seriously injured by an explosion on Dec. 16, 2024 – will be safer because of the acquisition of a ladder truck.

“We can rescue people faster than deploying ground ladders if it became necessary,” Gilmore said. “We can deliver 1,500 gallons of water, versus 750 to 1,000 gallons of water, and put it through a window.”

The ladder truck will replace the department’s 29-year-old fire engine.

In a letter addressed to City Council, Gilmore wrote that the Sycamore Fire Department needs to replace a 1996 Darley fire engine that he said “has become increasingly unreliable, costly to maintain, and is no longer suited for frontline emergency response.”

Gilmore said a new fire engine currently costs between $1 and 1.2 million, and could take two or three years to be built. A new ladder truck would cost $2.2 million, with an even longer build time, documents show.

The ladder truck Sycamore is buying, with at least 18,526 miles on its odometer, isn’t brand new, however.

Hall said that’s why he already put $100,000 down on the vehicle – so that the seller could allow the city time to discussion the purchase at a City Council meeting.

Before the Sycamore City Council voted to buy the vehicle, Sycamore Park District Commissioner Ted Strack, said he thinks the Sycamore Fire Department has used “fear” to coax city officials into buying a new fire station, and was doing the same to secure a ladder truck.

Gilmore disagreed. The fire chief said he was advocating for the safety of residents. In his letter, Gilmore said the ladder truck could make the city more desirable for business because he thinks it will help improve the city’s Insurance Services Office rating.

Sycamore Mayor Steve Braser told the City Council on Monday that he’s involved in the insurance business and worries that tight streets and parking lots near townhomes could inhibit first responders’ ability to get to a fire without a ladder truck.

“One of our main things should always be the safety of the community,” Braser said. “If we make this town safer then we’re doing our job.”

Fourth Ward Alderperson Ben Bumpus was the only no vote against the purchase. He said the speed at which the City Council was being asked to make a decision concerned him.

“In a week’s time we’re sitting here making a decision on this with really just this one data point,” Bumpus said. “We’re not looking at a list of possible other engines for sale and comparing them, we’re not looking at the plus and minuses of each of these.”

Hall told Bumpus he was surprised he found the truck still for sale in the first place.

“To find something like this with the low miles and hours is difficult,” Hall said.

Second Ward Alderperson Chuck Stowe voted in favor of the purchase.

“When you find a deal you go with it,” Stowe said.

The purchase will use funds from the city ambulance bank account to offset the city’s general fund in 2025. Then the Sycamore fire Department will be charged $200,000 over the next seven years to replenish the fund, documents show.

Fourth Ward Alderperson Virginia Sherrod recalled how she sat in her driveway and watched a July 2019 fire at St. Albans Green apartment complex that displaced more than 100 Sycamore residents.

“[Sycamore Fire Fighters] had to wait for a ladder truck to come in to spray water down on that fire, and they were afraid that the townhouses that I live in ... were going to catch on fire,” Sherrod said. “I would like to know that if my building, God forbid, caught on fire that the response time for a ladder truck to get here would be appropriate.”