By JOSH PHILLIPS
NAS Patuxent River Public Affairs

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, MD—When NAS Patuxent River Fire Chief George Kennett bought two new pumper firetrucks from Pierce Manufacturing, he just thought he was getting a good deal, not a ground-breaking one. But when he heard the Navy will start phasing out the lime-green color on firetrucks for the more traditional red, Kennett and his staff realized they now had the first red pumpers in the Navy.

“My two red pumpers are the first two in the Navy worldwide,” said Kennett. “It’s a big morale booster to have these trucks. A lot of my personnel are volunteers and they’re normally used to working with the red apparatus. It’s kind of like a status-quo thing to them. But to me, it doesn’t matter what color the truck is or what it says on the side, just as long as it gets there and helps [people] out. That’s the important thing.”

The Contender 4-door top-mount Kenworth T300 pumpers were bought from the manufacturer for $210,000 each, nearly $200,000 less than the going retail price for the standard models.

According to Kennett, once he found out that the Navy was doing a big buy on fire apparatus, he made sure to get in on the deal at the last minute.

“Since Pax River is a Defense Budget Operating Facility, NAS bills tenants for services that public works provide,” he said. “For those funds we get Capital Program purchase money. For things that cost over $100,000, we have to put in three years ahead of time. Fortunately, we had $408,000 coming to us earmarked for pumpers. Knowing that the Navy was in the middle of buying large amounts of fire equipment, I got in at the tail end of the buy. So I didn’t have to go out and reinvent the wheel to get these trucks because the deal was basically done.”

While the price of the two vehicles were the same, the size was not. One pumper has a tank capacity of 750 gallons. The second truck only holds 500 gallons. Kennett had hoped to put the larger pumper at Webster Field because of its relatively isolated location. The trucks are a big hit among Kennett’s staff, who say the trucks drive smoothly and handle well.

-USN-

Photo by Josh Phillips
Volunteer firemen test one of the station’s newest pumper trucks on the Patuxent River.