Published on July 16, 2025
New Tower Truck Comes to Town
Look out fires, there’s a new truck in town!
St. Albert Fire Services has added a new aerial ladder truck, otherwise known as a “tower truck” to its fleet. It comes complete with a wide range of specialized capabilities, including a 100-foot platform on a mid-mounted turn table.
So, what makes this truck so special?
“Having this truck and our current tower truck provides us with two different capabilities,” explains Leigh Sawicki, Deputy Fire Chief, Operations. “This truck can get into tighter spaces than our current truck does and will be a great help with the new multi-story buildings being built in the community.”
The new tower truck also has “ease of use capabilities” where the outriggers deploy faster than our current tower allowing it to be set up faster. This is a huge advantage as the faster you can set a truck up at an incident the quicker you can respond to the tasks at hand.
“Currently, with only one tower truck available when additional resources are required we are relying on mutual aid resources to assist, However, having the new truck will allow us to have this specialty apparatus on hand in our community without the need to call for additional support as often. As the community grows, this allows for more adequate coverage within St. Albert,” adds Sawicki.
Coming all the way from Wisconsin, it made its journey to St. Albert during the month of May, is being set up with its equipment and is showing our firefighters the ropes on how to use it throughout the summer. The truck is anticipated to be ready for active duty in early fall.
“We have to get the equipment mounted on it and ensure all our firefighters fully understand how it works and what it can do in a variety of different situations,” adds Sawicki. “Before it goes into service it also needs to have all the hoses, saws and nozzles added to it no different than any of our other trucks.”
Set to make its permanent home at Fire Hall 4, it will hang out for now at Fire Hall 1, it was ordered early as custom ordering a fire truck can take up to a minimum of five years to arrive.
“We were lucky to find a stock truck that met the majority of our needs, and it has arrived a year sooner than anticipated,” says Sawicki.
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Last edited: July 16, 2025