By Mark Woolsey

Marietta officials noted the arrival of two new fire trucks Tuesday with what was called a “push-in” ceremony.

During the noon event, city council members and firefighters from Station 55 pushed one of the new trucks into that station’s garage.

Fire chief Tim Milligan explained it’s a nod to how the fire services operated when horses, not motor engines, powered the early fire vehicles called “steamers.”

“Whenever they’d come back from a call, of course, the horses can’t back the steamers in. The crews would have to unhook the horses and push. And that’s just a kind of held-on tradition in the fire services through these many decades, so as departments put new trucks in service, it’s just an old tradition to push the truck in.”

The new trucks cost $650 thousand apiece, said the chief. They were manufactured by Kovatch Mobile Equipment Corp. (KME) in Louisiana.

City council members Joseph Goldstein, Andre Sims, Cheryl Richardson and Johnny Walker were on hand to take part in the ceremony. City manager Bill Bruton also turned out. Goldstein indicated to the Courier the new trucks were very welcome.

“The ceremony brings recognition of the new fire engine and support for our Marietta Fire Department, not just by the city council, but by voters who approved the engine as part of the 2022 SPLOST,” he said in an emailed statement.

Milligan says he was also grateful to the community for their continued support of the SPLOST.

As the new engines go into service at both fire stations 55 and 56, the chief emphasized they are two of the busiest stations in the city. Station 55 is located at 1160 Franklin Gateway, and Station 56 is at 850 Sawyer Road.

Milligan says the new trucks have some technical upgrades but otherwise are laid out in the same way as the other trucks in the city’s fleet. That standardization helps in a number of ways, including firefighters transferring from one station to another who don’t have to acquaint themselves with new apparatus.

The Chief says the older fire trucks that were housed at the stations are high-mileage vehicles and will get a complete overhaul then will be “rolled back into the fleet.”