Fire department to convert military vehicle into brush truck

The Snyder Fire Department received a used military truck this month as part of a Texas Forestry Service program, and will convert the vehicle into a brush truck.
The county will give the fire department $4,000 for materials needed for the fire department’s paid firefighters to build the truck. The water tank and pump unit for the truck will be funded by the county as well, though they are eligible to be reimbursed by a combination of grants from the Texas Forestry Service and the United States Department of Defense.
The grants will total $20,000 and will be available to the county if the fire department finishes the truck in 180 days or less. Fire Chief Perry Westmoreland said the fire department should be done in time, provided the weather cooperates.
“We will probably have it on the road by May,” Westmoreland said. “We will need some warm weather to be able to paint the truck.”
The forestry service’s program has provided military trucks for use by the fire department in the past, most recently in 1999. However, the program’s policy was recently modified.
“Those two were passed down to the fire department for us to use, but they were still technically owned by the forestry service,” Westmoreland said. “Once we were ready to replace one of them, the forestry service would get the old truck back. This new one will actually be ours to keep.”
The Snyder Fire Department received a brand new brush truck in October through a grant, but it was already built. Westmoreland said this project will be the ninth brush truck the fire department has built in the past 16 years.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to get a new brush truck, and it’s only going to cost the county $4,000,” Westmoreland said.