The Castor Volunteer Fire Department has taken possession of a pair of new trucks.
Funded jointly through the Town of Castor, the County of Paintearth and insurance, the department has received a new water tender and a new rapid-response pickup truck.
The water tender replaces the one that was destroyed in a rollover in February 2022 which also claimed the life of firefighter Stephen Rayfield and injured fire Chief Patrick Kelly.
A special ceremony was held on Feb. 13 to welcome the two new trucks to the department.
According to Castor Volunteer Fire Department officer Quinton Beaumont, the push-in ceremony is a “very old tradition,” where new equipment is “pushed in the firehouse to mark that it is officially in service.”
Beaumont says that the tradition stems back to the days when fire wagons were horse-drawn.
After a fire, the wagons would be returned to the hall and the horses unhitched. While the horses would be returned to the stable, fed and watered, firefighters would push the wagon back into the hall and get it ready for the next call, restocking it with supplies and refilling it with water.
The tradition continues in North American firehouses to this day.
While the ceremony marking the two trucks in service took place on Feb. 13, due to some work that each still needs to be done, they won’t be response-ready until sometime in mid-March according to Chief Kelly.
