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On Monday night, The Valley Grande City Council discussed the idea of having a new fire truck with the thoughts of the Selma Interim Fire Chief Coley Boyd and the Summerfield volunteer Chief Kevin Box’s suggested recommendations during their latest council meeting.

The idea behind the search for a new fire truck came about after Mayor Wayne Labbe said he noticed that the city has had several fires within this month alone and said that one area known as Summerfield needs more fire assistance coverage.

“We can’t carry enough water to these fires,” Labbe said. “Only about 10 percent of the residents in Valley Grande are close enough to a fire hydrant to even be assisted by the fire hydrant. So, we’re having to carry water to everything and with this fire that took place on Valley Creek Church Road with this big house, there were several trips made back and forth.”

Labbe told the members of the council and those within the audience of the meeting that, “When you leave a scene like that, by the time you are able to get water again and get back to it, your fire is caught back up again and you have to steady pipe it. So, the reason the volunteer fire department and Boyd talked about this is because the regular pumpers that we have today, over the last few months, have had to have a few repairs made on them.”

Labbe spoke into the audience and asked the Valley Grande volunteer fire chief Billy Barrett and Summerfield Volunteer Chief Kevin Box what was the final total for the repairs of the pumpers they have currently within the shop and the amount quoted was between $70,000 to $80,000.

“And this is the situation,” Labbe said. “Everything has gone up and the new trucks are well over a half a million dollars or more and what’s going on is people are going out and trying to find good used trucks, which makes them go up. But, it getting to where volunteer fire departments are struggling and this one is struggling right now.”

Labbe showed a document to the council of a 2007 pierce Tanker truck that is located in Virginia with the bidding price sitting at $110,000 and he told the council that it is currently on bid for the next six or seven days.

“This truck is probably on the market worth about $180,000,” Labbe said. “And, a new one just like this is about $600,000,” said Box.

The council was in shock at the brand- new tanker price and they discussed the ends and outs with Mayor Labbe, the Valley Grande Fire Department, the Summerfield Volunteer Fire Department including the Selma Fire Department interim Chief about their recommendations regarding the used tanker and since the council could not decide a concrete discussion this meeting, Labbe decided to put a pause on a decision regarding the truck until Boyd and Box come together on a thorough decision regarding the truck search.