Bernalillo County Fire & Rescue to acquire first electric fire truck in the state
BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – Bernalillo County Fire & Rescue (BCFR) received funding from the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) to get its first electric fire truck.
NMED awarded BCFR $417,718 in grant funding to partially reimburse $1,829,973 in project costs to replace a 1991 Engine Model Year diesel-fueled Class 8, Pierce Dash fire engine, with a Pierce Volterra battery electric fire engine that does not produce any tailpipe emissions.
“We look forward to bringing one of the first all-electric fire engines into our department as well as our state. Our main goal is to purchase an engine that allows us to perform as efficiently and safely as we do today while also being mindful of our role in protecting our environment,” said Deputy County Manager and Fire Chief Greg Perez in a news release.
The electric truck will also be the first of its kind in the state.”We’re going to learn from it, and just hopefully other departments can, you know, learn from what we learned from this and maybe get their own fully electric fire truck as well,” said BCFR spokesperson William Harris.
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The new electric fire engine will operate out of BCFR’s newest station house at 6810 Edith Blvd. NE, in Albuquerque’s North Valley. This station is being developed as the county’s first fully electric building and is scheduled to become operational in late 2024 or early 2025. “We’re going to be building that station with our electric fleet in mind. So not only will it be getting its power from solar, every station in the county has a backup electrical generator in case of outages. So that truck will always be ready and powered if it needs to go,” said Harris.
According to NMED, replacing engine No. 0941 with a new fully electric truck would be roughly equivalent to removing 37 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles from the road each year. Over the lifetime of the vehicle, it will offset 20,370 gallons of diesel fuel use, with the added benefit of removing nearly 230 tons of carbon dioxide.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded the funding to NMED to disperse through the state’s Clean Diesel Program, which is for projects that reduce harmful heavy-duty diesel emissions.
The remaining cost of the electric fire truck will be covered by county funds. “We’re allotted $1.4 million every year to help maintain our fleet,” said Harris.
