Council to vote on new fire engine

Published 11:52 am Monday, August 4, 2025

Meridian City Council members are set to vote Tuesday on purchasing a new fire engine for Meridian Fire Department at a cost of $1.8 million.

In a work session last week, Fire Chief Michael Evans said the fire department’s current pumper truck at Station 7 is nearing the end of its life. Trucks are good for about 20 years, he said, and that particular one was built in 2007.

Evans said he plans to transfer the 2017 pumper currently at Station 1 to Station 7 as a replacement for the retiring vehicle and purchase a new platform truck to fill the vacancy at Station 1. Platform trucks are more convent for fighting fires than ladder trucks, he said, and it will be an asset to the department.

“We used to have a platform truck here in the city,” he said. “It’s a whole lot easier to use a platform if you need to get somewhere high.”

A trend in fire departments throughout the country has been to paint trucks with the colors of the local high school, Evans said, and MFD plans to do the same with the new platform truck. The new vehicle will be blue, black and white

Although 2027 is more than a year away, Evans said it will take approximately two years to build the platform truck once the manufacturer receives the go ahead from the city. The city will have to sign a contract before the manufacturer starts building, but the city will have plenty of time to come up with the money, he said.

“We don’t have to put it in this year’s budget. You probably don’t have to put it in next year’s budget,” he said. “It’ll probably be budgeted in 2028.”

Currently, MFD only has two fire engines still under financing, and both are expected to be paid off within the next three years, Evans said. The freed-up funding could be used toward the new platform truck if needed, he said.

Evans said council members should also know the fire engine at Station 5 will reach the end of its 20-year lifespan in 2028, and it will also need to be replaced. A replacement truck will likely run in the $800,000 to $900,000 range.