The Bridgewater Fire Department is pushing to have a new rescue truck included in this years budget at a cost of 610 thousand dollars. Fire Chief Wayne Thorburne says replacing the truck has been identified since 2000. He says the Fire Department has worked to hold the line on budget and to defer the purchase for another year would only increase the debt load. Chief Thorburne says the truck is going on 23 years old, it's hard to get parts and is a specialized piece of equipment that takes 9 to 11 months to build. The Rescue Unit is used mostly for Mutual Aid. It contains the "Jaws of Life" and is used at accident scenes and as a fire support vehicle. The last new purchase for the Fire Department was a new aerial ladder truck in 2007 at a cost of 951 thousand dollars. The ladder truck it replaced, was 25 years old and was donated to the Nova Scotia Firefighters School in Waverly.
