The Mt. Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department debuted their new ladder truck, “Truck 5” at the Christmas Tree Lighting held Nov. 30 on Main Street in Mt. Pleasant. The new truck, with its 65 foot ladder fully extended, was parked in front of the Mt. Pleasant Fire Station for everyone to admire during the festivities.

Officially declared “in service” by Mt. Pleasant Fire Chief Sam Draper during a brief ceremony at the tree lighting, the new “Truck 5” joins Engine 5, Engine 52, Brush 52 and Tender 5 ready to defend the lives and property of Mt Pleasant’s citizens.

A federal grant partially funded the cost of the new fire truck which came with the big price tag of $1.2 million and took 3 years to be built. Customized to the specifications of the Mt. Pleasant Fire Department by Rosenbauer, the world leader in fire truck design and engineering, Truck 5 is the only fire truck of its kind in the entire country due to its shorter truck body. Holding 300 gallons of water and pumping 2000 gallons a minute, the truck is designed for initial attack with its existing water supply and can subsequently be hooked up to a hydrant for sustained water access.

Excitement at the Mt. Pleasant Fire Station built towards the end of the tree lighting festivities, as volunteer firefighters and citizens alike prepared for the traditional “push in” ceremony. The legacy of the “push in” ceremony harkens back to the first days of firefighting in the early 1800s when fire apparatus were pulled by horse teams. Back then, after crews returned to the fire house with their horse-drawn equipment, they detached their horse teams and needed to push their equipment into the bay. As motorized apparatus replaced the horse drawn fire equipment the need to manually move the equipment was gone.

But the legacy of the push-in remains, as many fire departments hold a push-in ceremony when taking delivery of a new apparatus. Now, in honor of those early crews, the push-in ceremony invites community members to celebrate the exciting moment their tax dollars helped make possible. On the memorable evening of November 30th in 2024, volunteer firefighters from Mt. Pleasant joined with the citizens of Mt .Pleasant to officially put Truck 5 into service with the push-in ceremony.

Welcome home, Truck 5!!