New wheels

REPUBLIC — There's a new truck in town. Scipio-Republic Fire Department has purchased a 2017 Kenworth pumper-tanker and got it Thursday. Chief Jason Porter said the truck was a demonstration unit and is operational. He said it is "definitely a Cadillac." "We drove 14 long, crazy hours to Mississippi to look at it, tested it out," he said. "It was in our price range." The truck has a 1,250-gallon pump, a 1,250-gallon tank and a rear water dumping mechanism. Porter said the truck was about $258,000 from Deep South Fire Trucks in Seminary, Mississippi. The fire department has received funding from levies and had set aside money to put toward a truck. "We had a pretty good down payment," he said. The department has five trucks in its fleet. The new pumper-tanker replaces a 1986 Ford pumper-tanker that the department is going to try to sell. The new truck is to be the department's secondary truck for local fires and the first-run engine for mutual-aid fires. Porter expressed appreciation for taxpayers' continued support and to Aaron Cole, owner of Cole Transportation near Republic. "(Cole) went down and got it and donated his time to bring it back for us," he said.