Our local fire department in Portage la Prairie is getting a new fire truck, and it comes with a feature never before utilized in our city.

Phil Carpenter, Fire Chief director of public safety, says it should be here in the next two weeks.

"It'll be replacing the 1991 Frontline pumper," says Carpenter. "The old pumper is 30 years old. The new truck coming will be similar to the one that we received in 2015. It might be a little bit bigger but very similar in size as the 2015. The one we're getting is absolutely brand new. It was ordered. Fort Garry Fire Trucks is the company that's building it."

t and light up a scene when it's dark.

"Usually, we buy new trucks," adds Carpenter. "The only truck that we bought used was the aerial truck purchased in 2015. That was the 100-foot platform aerial truck that has a pump on it. It was a 2000 truck. But those trucks brand new, what they're telling me today, are worth over $2 million. That was, I guess, one of the reasons why we looked at a used truck for that at that time. But other than that, all the other trucks that I'm aware of, since I've been on this department, are usually always new because, again, ideally it should be, say, a life span of 20 to 25 years. And this truck is 30-years old. So, it's done us well, but it was time for us to replace it."

He notes the new version has newer technology with the command scene light that previous trucks did not have in their department.

"It provides pumping water or foam on fires. With the custom cab, we can carry six people," says Carpenter. "It's fully heated, air-conditioned, and it has electrical ports inside the cab for charging our batteries and our thermal imaging cameras. It's similar to what we have already in all of the trucks now. By pulling the line, it's all integrated into the system, so the foam automatically deploys in the line. Sometimes, we put systems on that they call foam inductors. Now we can add foam to lines if needed. The light is definitely one of our newer components that the other trucks will not have."

Carpenter says the truck comes at a cost of $687,000.