Submitted by: Mike Sanders
The Boyce Volunteer Fire Company in Clarke County has placed into service a “new” Squad 4.
The 1997 Simon-Duplex/Saulsbury was purchased from the Goshen Fire Company in West Chester, Pennsylvania. It is equipped with a 250 gallon per minute pump and a 250 gallon water tank.
Squad 4 carries a variety of equipment including rescue jacks, cribbing, hurst tools, saws, rehab equipment, water and high angle rescue equipment, and HAZMAT items. In addition, Squad 4 has a 25 foot light tower, carries 30 gallons of foam in buckets, two ladders (24′ and a attic ladder), and has a air cascade system. The new squad is a nice step up from the smaller unit that Boyce was running.
The Saulsbury squad replaces a 1983 Ford F700/EVF medium size squad that has been sold to the Little River VFD located in Transylvania County, North Carolina. The 1983 Ford had provided service to several Virginia fire stations. Originally ordered by the Falmouth VFD, it was then sold to the Round Hill VFD in Frederick County and then to Boyce.
My thanks to Chief Conrad and Lt. Jeff Gray for information on the new Squad 4. In addition, special thanks to Will Catlett for moving the squad for photos and providing information. Will also did the lettering work, which looks great.
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One of our life members forwared this article out. I had just gotten released to drive the old Salvage 1, just before we sold it and replaced it with our 1994 Pierce Lance, which we still are using. Glad to hear Salvage 1 is still providing service. Does the generator cover still fall off every once in awhile when going down the road.
I like the look of our new squad, however we are lacking the proper training and officers to operate this squad. As with all small Volunteer Fire stations,we need to bring in real crews to operate this equipment.
I dont know where Boyce fire company is but I hope Mr. Conrad or Ms. is just kidding. This looks like a very nice piece of equipment and I’m sure the department is proud of it. It says one of the members even done the lettering. Sounds like a comment from the peanut gallery. With all the tools this thing has on it looks like somebody knew what they were doing. If you are lacking the proper training maybe you should shut up and train more. What is a “real crew”? I would expect if you brought in some big time paid people they wouldnt even know how to start the thing until they trained on it. As a fellow volunteer I say CONGRATULATIONS to Boyce!
I am very proud of my new squad. we had to beg borrow, and steal to get this truck running. I spent hours washing the years of bird dunk that had accumulated all over it. she’s a nice looking truck, but runs slow, and hopefully our community will kick in and help get her running. i hate when people puts down our work here. we are staffed by only 4 able volunteers, and some old associate members. we have career staffing here in boys va. and they are the reasons why we bought this massive vehicle. i asked the chief last week, if it had everything with it, why doesnt it have an xbox hook up with a nice tv, so we can play while other people with expeirence run the fire calls. im not saying were not expierenced, im saying we need help. heck half our members who do show are heart attacks waiting to happen. whatever happend to physical training. overall, in good way..were gonna win the trophy at apple blossom this year.look for me there..i’ll be sitting in the drivers seat
Sounds if you have “only 4 able volunteers, you have some real problems with management. Maybe you should fix that before you get a big boy toy.