The Humboldt Fire Department plans to acquire a new rescue truck to accommodate its growing inventory of rescue equipment.

“The fire department runs right now with a smaller F-550 truck that we use for all our rescue equipment,” Chief Mike Kwasnica said.

“And it has been doing the job up till now - we do have more rescue equipment than we have space for on the truck, so we’ve had to remove some of that and in order to have all our tools that we need, we need to go to a bigger chassis truck.”

The current truck also doesn’t carry water, which can be needed to put out a fire at a car crash. As it stands, they must dispatch a pumper as well.

“What we’re looking at doing is reducing the number of vehicles that we’re responding with to a motor vehicle accident outside of Humboldt,”  Kwasnica said.

Kwasnica wouldn’t disclose the budget the department is working with, but did say they’ve got some preliminary estimates from manufacturers. He hopes the procurement process will finish and the truck will arrive within a year, he said.

The cost will be split between the City of Humboldt and the Humboldt and District Fire Protection Association, which includes communities outside the city limits, he said.