The Nederland Fire Department will soon add a new member to the team. The department is adding a $750,000 fire truck to the lineup and passing on their 1991 model, which will be used by Lamar University, Fire Chief Terry Morton said.

The city council voted to use money from the general fund as well as money previously donated to the department to buy the new truck back in late August of last year.

“We got a donation from Phillips 66 for $100,000 and it was for fire equipment or apparatus,” City Manager Chris Duque said. “Former Chief Gary Collins put it away until it was time to buy the new truck.”

Duque said the remainder of the money came from the general fund thanks to a good sales tax year due to people buying locally to rebuild following Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey.

Buying a new fire engine is not the same as buying a new car. For Morton, the first step came in the month before the city council casted their vote. Morton was at a training session at Texas A&M when he saw what became the baseline for what the department purchased.

“They have vendors and they have a lot of trucks there from different manufacturers,” Morton said. “I spent the day looking at new trucks. That’s what kicked off the process. It gives you a chance to look at what’s being built. I saw one and knew that would be a good basis for a truck. We pretty much added to that to come up with what we have now.”

The new vehicle will have a new look, which was put up to a vote by members of the department. The firefighters opted to go away from the all white look like the other trucks in the fleet went with a red and black look.

“There was a ballot put out,” Morton said. “I made up a committee. There was one person off of each of the shifts. They came up with a couple of different paint schemes and it was put out on a ballot and voted on.”

Morton said he also had members have a say in the design process.

“There was a lot of great ideas they came up with,” he said. “I think it’s going to work out and be a good truck.”

The truck isn’t just going to look sharp. It has a few upgrades that will make life easier for the first responders.

“We added a pole that, when you use it, it raises up in the air and has a really bright set of LED lights,” Morton said. “That’s going to be something different for us that we haven’t had before. Groves has one on their truck. Once I saw theirs, I knew we needed one. We can roll it up on a wreck scene and light up the whole highway.”

The truck also will allow firefighters to increase the hose capacity from 1,200 feet of five-inch supply line to 1,500 feet. The truck will also have six pre-connected hose lines as opposed to the four the older model had.

Duque, along with Assistant Fire Chief Jeff Sparks and Shift Captain Colin Batchelor will go to Wisconsin for three days to go over a checklist and get some preliminary training on the new truck. A few weeks later, the new truck will be delivered to the fire station. The firefighters will take about a week to get the equipment moved over and undergo some extra training before the truck’s debut in late May.