The Town of LaSalle has approved the purchase of a new 100 foot fire aerial platform with a $2.7-million price tag.
Council received a report Tuesday evening to approve the purchase of this new apparatus, which will be equipped with a basket that is used to lift firefighters up into the air up to 100 feet.
A tender was put out in February, and only one response was received by Camions Carl Thibault Inc. for the purchase.
Camions Carl Thibault inc. met all the requirements of the Request for Tender.
Mark Seguin, LaSalle Deputy Fire Chief, says the approval was needed now as it will take over two years to be ready.
"The timeline for delivery after the order is placed right now is fourth quarter 2026. So we do have to order it sooner than later as our tower is due to be put out of service beginning of 2027. It's coming to its end of service life."
He says they will explore options through the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs to dispose of the current aerial to recover some costs.
"The OAFC has a website where we could list it as an auction, we could potentially look at sending it to a northern community because I know there's interest in that as well, and there's also other avenues with brokers and different avenues of buying used fire vehicles. So we're hoping to recover some cost."
Seguin says they had input on what the truck will look like.
"We put a committee together to kind of build our wants and needs for this vehicle. Not a lot of wants, mostly just needs, and then we put that through the bids and tenders process, and this is the company that said 'yes, we can build what you request'."
The purchase of the aerial platform will be funded from the Fire Capital Reserve. The approved budget for this replacement is $2.1-million.
The additional funds required for the purchase will be funded from the Fire Capital Reserve as well.