By Neil Farrell
The Morro Bay Fire Department recently said “Adios,” to its old, broken ladder truck, sending it off to auction for whatever they can get for it.
Fire Chief Steve Knuckles said they turned the aged truck over to Ken Porter Auctions of Los Angeles. Since the ladder’s bull pinion gear, which supports the hoisted ladder and allows it to pivot, is broken, it isn’t worth much for an accredited fire agency.
“No municipal agency will buy it,” he said. “It’s broken. And it’s a 32-year-old truck. No one will want to spend the $350,000 it would cost to replace the ladder, and that estimate was from five years ago.”
To fix it would have required tearing down the truck to the frame, which is the ladder’s support system. With ladder trucks, the framework of the ladder is built first then the truck — engine, cab, body, chassis, and pumps — are built around it.
Chief Knuckles said a likely buyer might be a farmer or private company for the pumps and holding tank to transport water, or “any type of non-life-safety operations.”
He anticipates getting about $30,000 for it. Another reason for it to be sold now is to make room for the department’s new ladder truck that should be here in early March.
“We’ve done the final inspections,” Knuckles said. “If it survives the drive out here, we should get it around March 30.” They will take about 30 days outfitting and equipping the ladder truck and it should be put into service around April 1. Pierce Manufacturing of Appleton, Wis., is building it.
The $775,000, 80-foot ladder truck is not costing Morro Bay residents anything.
The department was bequeathed $1 million from the estate of Bertha Shultz, a former Morro Bay resident, who last year also left $1 million to the Atascadero Fire Department and gave $100,000 to the Friends of the Morro Bay Library for its remodel project, among other causes that she left money to. The fire department also plans to buy $250,000 worth of self-contained breathing apparatus with the remaining money.
