Photo by Niamh Coomey Rescue 1 Captain Tadd Deluca (left) and fire engineer and paramedic Watson Barsch were instrumental in the planning and build of the new truck.

WHEELING — The Wheeling Fire Department debuted its custom-built fire engine this week, a planning and building process that has been over four years in the making.

The new rescue truck, which will be used by the Rescue One team at Station Two in North Wheeling, is a replacement for the department’s previous 15-year-old rescue truck. The new vehicle has several updated features that will make Rescue One’s job easier and better serve the Wheeling community.

“It’s extremely exciting,” said Wheeling Fire Chief Jim Blazier. “We’ve purchased the truck and been waiting for it for more than two years and the planning process was going on two years before that. These trucks aren’t something you buy off the lot, you organize it the way you want it and then it’s custom-built to your specifications.”

One of the biggest benefits of the new truck is that it has 30% more storage space than the previous truck, and an easier-to-navigate layout. Now, almost every piece of equipment on the vehicle can be accessed without having to move other items out of the way, a restructuring that will save first responders time during emergencies.

The state-of-the-art truck also has bridge and cliff rescue capabilities, a new development for the fire department.

“There’s a lot of features that we have on this truck that are game changers compared to what we had,” Blazier said. “We have a multitude of equipment on there that serves all different facets of rescue, EMS and firefighting.”

The firefighters and first responders on the Rescue One team, overseen by Captain Tadd Deluca, played a large role in determining which features would be the most beneficial on the new truck.

“The crews that rode the old truck were very instrumental in the planning. So they’re very excited, they had a lot of input into how the truck was laid out and how the equipment is laid out in it so it gives them that sense of accomplishment and success for all the work that they’ve done,” Blazier said.

WFD also consulted other fire departments across the eastern seaboard with custom trucks to get input on equipment and features they have found useful and what they wish they had done differently on their own builds.

“We took a lot of those opinions into play in our planning stages and of course budget falls into play, some of the stuff we really wanted wasn’t in the budget so we had to scale back and come up with things that would work for us that were in the budget and we’ve come up with a very nice unit,” Blazier said.

The truck was built by Appleton, Wisconsin-based company Pierce Manufacturing. Fire department leaders took several trips to Appleton to review the truck as it was being built and the team at home in Wheeling waited for updates each week.

“The company sent us weekly pictures. Every Friday everybody was waiting with baited breath to get the pictures of the truck and where it was in the build process so it was really an exciting process and it’s exciting now to have it here and have it out there serving the community,” Blazier said.