Great Falls Fire Rescue’s new 107-foot aerial apparatus has arrived in the city.

The new ladder truck is currently undergoing a post-delivery inspection and GFFR crews are training on the apparatus this month. Once that’s completed, the new vehicle will be put into service and GFFR will retire it’s 1996 75-foot aerial engine.

In March, City Commissioners voted to accept a Federal Emergency Management Agency Assistance to Firefighters grant for the aerial.

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GFFR had applied for the grant in 2021.

At the time of the grant application, the cost for a new 107-foot aerial truck and equipment was an estimated $1.3 million and would require a 10 percent match from the city, or $130,000.

By March, the cost has increased to about $1.6 million, according to GFFR.

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The new truck will replace the current 1996 75-foot aerial truck that has exceeded its service life, according to GFFR.

GFFR was notified that it was awarded $900,454 through the grant and asked commissioners to accept the grant and approve the purchase of a new aerial truck not to exceed $1.6 million.

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The city wasn’t awarded the full amount of its request because the grant program cannot award more than $990,500 since the city has a population under 100,000, according to GFFR.

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Of the $900,454 grant award, the city will have to provide a 10 percent match of $90,045, according to GFFR, and the remainder of the total cost, which was $1,525,000.

Funds from the city’s central garage reserve fund were used for the remaining cost of the aerial truck.

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Fire Chief Jeremy Jones told commissioners in March that GFFR was never informed of that grant’s population limit during the application process by FEMA and it wasn’t included in the application materials.

Because of that change, the city’s cost for the new aerial truck was more than anticipated.

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As with other grants awarded to GFFR, the application was written by staff and not contracted to a grant writing service.

The new engine was not included in the GFFR portion of the public safety bond that is on the November ballot.

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The department doesn’t have available funding to replace equipment on a set schedule and has used grant funding for major equipment upgrades and in recent years, federal COVID relief funds to make improvements, such as refurbishing three engines to extend their lifespan versus purchasing new.

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Jones said that some of their equipment is from the 1970s and 1980s and the bond, if approved, will help replace other aging equipment and be used to construct a fifth fire station.

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The city used its cooperative purchasing agreement process through Sourcewell to purchase the new truck.

The city currently has two aerial apparatus in its fleet of emergency response vehicles.

The first is a 2009 Pierce 100-foot aerial apparatus that is a tandem axle vehicle meant to be staffed as part of the first due response to structure fires within the city, according to GFFR.

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Because of limited GFFR staffing resources, this apparatus is cross staffed with an engine company and is housed at Fire Station 2. Due to the size and maneuverability of this apparatus, it is not desirable to have this apparatus be an “all hazards” first due response unit in an outside district, according to GFFR.

The second aerial apparatus is the 1996 HME 75-foot Quint, that will be replaced by the new aerial truck.

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“This unit has had a long history of mechanical and structural deficiencies and has routinely been unavailable for service. Do to the unreliability of this apparatus, it has been placed in service only when the other apparatus is undergoing maintenance. This apparatus has been sent back to the factory for frame repairs and consistently has structural failures to its suspension system. Not having this apparatus available limits our response capabilities for fire alarm calls in the city,” according to the staff report.

Under the National Fire Protection Association guidelines, the 1996 aerial truck has surpassed its service life, according to staff, and the city has no funding mechanism to replace this vehicle through capital projects program or equipment revolving schedule.