October is Fire Prevention month and the City of Shawneetown has added a new tool forfirefighting when fire prevention doesn’t work. The Shawneetown Fire Department took
ownership of a 75 foot ladder truck on Monday. The ladder truck is thanks to the Lemont Fire
Protection District who gave the truck to Shawneetown.
Lemont Fire Chief George Rimbo said the ladder truck that was donated to Shawneetown was
replaced with a new ladder tower truck, at a cost of $1.3 million dollars.
Shawneetown Fire Chief Terry Golden, said this is the third truck that Lemont Fire Department
has given to Shawneetown. “ They have given us a rescue truck and a pumper truck previously,”
said Chief Golden, “We took the rescue truck out of service a few years ago as it was past the
usefulness to the department and the pumper truck is being given to Omaha Fire Department,
since they need a newer engine,” continued Golden.
The decision was pretty easy to make on accepting the ladder truck, when Lemont called and
asked if we were interested in the truck. Once the Shawneetown City Council approved the
donation, we had to make some room in the fire station for the ladder truck to fit.
So the fire department and the City Council approved an idea to pay it forward, by giving the
pumper truck to a department in Gallatin County. So we contacted the Omaha Fire Chief and
Omaha was needing an upgrade and the paying it forward continues, as the Omaha Fire
Department is donating their oldest fire truck to Elizabethtown Fire Department as the EFD fire
truck has quit running.
There are 42 multi-story buildings in Shawneetown alone, and the Shawneetown Fire
Department covers some 112 square miles in southeastern Gallatin County. Chief Golden
believes this new addition to the department, not only benefits the City of Shawneetown, but
Gallatin County and neighboring agencies that we run mutual aide.
Lemont is located just north of Joliet.
