With one of its new fire engines expected to be delivered sooner than anticipated, city council Tuesday granted a request from Roanoke Rapids Chief Jason Patrick to allocate $150,000 to equip the truck.

In a memo to City Manager Kelly Traynham, Patrick said the fire department has been notified that the first of the two new engines will be ready sometime next month.

“As I mentioned at the beginning of the purchasing process, we will need to purchase new equipment for one of these trucks,” he wrote. “The anticipated delivery of this engine is sooner than expected and we need to start purchasing the equipment now to ensure that the new truck can be put into service as soon as possible.”

The truck that will be delivered is an E-One custom pumper fire engine, which was approved for purchase in June of last year at a cost of $580,725 without upfit.

The equipment, Patrick said in the memo, includes a fire hose and nozzles, hand tools, power tools, radios, a thermal imaging camera as well as other equipment .

Traynham told the council the $150,000 is expected to cover everything. “I don’t think all of it will be used but we wanted to have a little contingency due to price fluctuations going on.”

Meanwhile, Patrick noted in the memo that the city will receive roughly $357,000 in reimbursement funds from FEMA upon delivery of the second truck which is expected by late summer or early fall. 

The fire department was awarded a $476,000 Assistance to Firefighters grant for that truck.

“When the second truck arrives our oldest truck will be eligible for retirement and we anticipate transferring eligible equipment from one to the other,” Patrick said in the memo.