FAYETTE — Fire Department members are counting the days until its new 2013 tanker-pumper fire truck goes into service.

The truck arrived on July 9, fire Chief Marty Maxwell said. It still needs a few more items to put on it before it can go into service and they are on their way.

The Department received a $270,000 grant from the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, also known as the Fire Act.

The biggest holdup was getting the federal money for the truck, Maxwell said Thursday. They contacted U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to help get the money released, he said.

The town’s voters agreed to match the funds and put in the additional money to cover the $305,000 International truck built by Rosenbauer of South Dakota. The town is also supplying an additional $30,000 that will come from the Fire Department’s capital reserve account to equip it.

The truck is equipped with a variety of hoses and nozzles, an automated external defibrillator, two air packs and more. It has a 2000-gallon tank and an automatic transmission. It also has a foam system, an automatic lowering device for a portable dump tank for water and a rear-mounted camera, Maxwell said.

The truck has extra ground lights, a pull-down step due to the height of the truck, special reflective striping, handrails and more.

A Q-siren from an older truck was installed on the new truck for nostalgia purposes, Maxwell said.

The tanker replaces a 1984 water-tender truck and a 1956 pumper-engine. The latter was taken out of service in 2010.

The grant requires the two trucks to never be used in the fire service again. They have to be sold to either a construction outfit, private collector or be scrapped, he said.

On the day the truck was delivered, the Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid departments provided a firetruck escort from Manchester to the Fayette station, Maxwell said.

The new truck will give the department three frontline trucks, consisting of a 20-year-old engine, a tanker and a forestry truck. There are about 18 firefighters on the department, including junior firefighters, he said.

One of his biggest concerns since he has been chief, he said, is if the engine had to out of service to be repaired, there would be no backup at his station, and he would need to rely on mutual aid to cover the town.

He and other members of the Truck Committee, Deputy Chief Stacey Rose, Assistant Chief John Churchill and the rest of the firefighting crew are grateful for the support they have received from residents.

“I get great support from the townspeople of Fayette,” Maxwell said.

The new truck will not only benefit the town but also fellow mutual aid towns of Readfield, Mt. Vernon, Vienna, Manchester and Wayne in the Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid group, as well as Livermore Falls and Chesterville.

dperry@sunjournal.com