
VAN BUREN, Maine – The Van Buren Town Council voted on Dec. 4 to purchase a $50,000 fire truck via Firetec, a used equipment supplier. Councilor Peter Madore, who serves on the town’s fire department, said the truck was an incredibly rare deal.
Madore said that Van Buren Fire Chief Brian Caron asked him to present the plan to the council in his absence, and that he would abstain from voting on the purchase as he is a member of the department.
The truck is a 2004 American LaFrance with a turbo diesel engine. It has a 750 gallon tank and it is 38 feet long, 10 feet wide and 9 1/2 feet tall. The sale also has equipment including 5 SCBA seats, a deck gun, emergency lighting, a siren, wrenches, adapters and air conditioning.
Madore said he has served in the department for 38 years and spends much of his time seeking out deals for equipment, and that opportunities like this do not come often.
“When a deal comes around, you’ve got to jump on it,” Madore said. “And this is a deal. I’m telling you guys, this is an amazing deal.”
The town council voted to purchase the truck using $50,000 in 2024-25 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) funds. In a separate motion, the council voted to sell their current 1997 KME pumper. They will also sell their 1987 Ford Rescue truck once it is replaced with a new brush truck.
Brush trucks are designed to maneuver hard-to-reach areas out in the field such as ATV trails. The truck is provided via grant funding and expected to arrive within the next year.
Once the two existing vehicles are sold, the money made will be placed back into the CIP account.
Madore said the 2004 truck has enough compartment space that they could ideally fulfill the purpose of both their previous fire truck and their rescue truck in one vehicle, allowing them to more efficiently respond to emergencies.
If the truck were purchased new, Madore said it would likely cost between $750,000 and $1 million.
“It has 23,000 miles on it,” he said. “It has 2,290 hours on it. That’s nothing. Our Engine One that we have now had, I think 24,000 miles when we bought it and I think it had 2,600 hours on it. And that was a good deal back then. And when we bought that truck, we paid almost $40,000 in 2012.”
Van Buren is also in the process of getting a new $2.8 million fire station, with $2.2 million paid via congressional funding. The town is seeking additional grant funding to cover the remainder. The new station will be on State Street, which leads into Van Buren from Caribou, and is expected to be completed in 2025.