The Penhold Fire Department has been awarded a grant from Farm Credit Canada that will be going towards developing a new fire truck.

FCC presented a check for $15,5000 this morning, to Fire Chief Jim Pendergast and Mayor Dennis Cooper.

Pendergast says they’ve purchased the truck from the City of Red Deer and will now modify it to help them battle fires for years to come.

“It’s almost impossible to find a used tender that’s automatic and meets our needs. I’ve been look for years and usually it just isn’t possible because they’re specialty trucks so municipalities hold on to them forever. But we anticipate this truck will meet our needs and serve the community for 15 to 20 years.”

Pendergast says this isn’t an actual fire truck, but instead they’ll be turning it into one with two major changes be added to it.

“The chassis meets our needs in that it’s automatic, but we need to change the water tank from more of an elliptical tank to a square tank that has baffles in it so water isn’t shifting around when we go around corners. We also will need to add a rated fire pump to it.”

The total cost of the project will be about $225,000, and should be completed in a few months’ time.