ELMA, N.Y. - The Blossom Fire Department in Elma is getting ready to roll out a new piece of life saving equipment and it can go anywhere and do just about anything they need.
Fire Chief Mark Schaefer is at the controls of the Argo Utility Task Vehicle, an eight wheel amphibious tracked machine which can go through just about anything, anywhere.
They saw a compelling need for it's all access capability as Schaefer notes, "The creek in town flooded and engulfed four houses and we didn't have any vehicles that could access that area conveniently. We ended up in the end getting a boat with a significant delay in access."
Of course it also goes over snow. That could be feet of it like November 2014 when an Argo was used in Cheektowaga when nothing else could get through, That prompted the Bellevue Fire Department to buy one last November.
Blossom Firefighters in Elma went with an upgrade.
It has a stretcher for patient transport and a trailer with a pump that can also use foam to extinquish a fire in a hard to reach area, And it's equipped for another winter hazard, icy water rescues.
Schaefer says, "very low center of gravity. It's fully amphibious. You can literally drive onto a lake and continue driving. It doesn't sink and it has less than one psi of downward force on the ground. Which is not even a quarter of a what a human foot puts on the ground. So it can float on top of snow and mud and literally water. And it's going to get everywhere we need to get."
This version carries a $50,000 dollar sticker price. So how did a small department like Blossom buy it?
Chief Schaefer says, "We do not have a fancy building and fancy equipment. But we have the necessary equipment. We've been saving in our truck fund for years. We had the McGowan fund donating to us for this for years. And so we did it all on savings, no additional levy. No additional monies from the town in any form."
They hope to have the new Argo in service with their fire department in about two weeks and of course with mutual aid, this very versatile vehicle will be available to help neighboring firefighters with any access issues for fires or rescues.
The Argo firm, based in Ontario, Canada, told me about 25 of these vehicles are now in use around New York State for emergency services. Over 75 total are being used around the country for first responders.