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Bartlesville Fire Fighters spent most of the first week of December training on the controls of their newly-purchase tower-ladder truck and now the truck is ready for use in future dispatch calls.

The truck has the ability to reach many of the taller buildings in the city which will help to improve the department’s ISO rating. An ISO rating is issued by a state’s Insurance Services Office and it is based on how prepared the fire department equipment and personnel are in protecting the community as a whole from a fire. The City currently holds an ISO rating of 2/2y, which is in the top one percent of the state but Chief David Topping says the goal is to maintain that rating by continually upgrading equipment and personnel training. Topping says the highest rating is a 1 and he intends for Bartlesville Fire Department to eventually obtain that score.

The truck was purchased from Daco Fire Equipment for $1.3 million as part of the 2020 General Obligation Bond Election. Due to inflation, the truck went over budget by about $246,000 and the difference was taken from the unallocated funds of the Half-Cent Capital Improvement Project Sale Tax Funds.