FIREFIGHTERS in Newton Abbot have welcomed a new addition to their crew.
The team have taken delivery of a new Volvo medium rescue pump.
It’s the first brand new vehicle the station has taken delivery of in 30 years.
And Newton Abbot is the first on-call fire station to get one of the new pumps.
The new vehicles are part of a county-wide programme to replace old equipment.
A spokesman said: ‘This has much more powerful cutting equipment which helps with road accidents’
And just a week after it arrived, the pump has been used already for several incidents ranging from a naval ship fire to car fires.
The new vehicle has a larger pump with two hose reel jets which are thicker in diameter, allowing the crew to deliver greater amounts of water to an incident.
The appliance is also equipped with V-struts which can be used in a road accident to provide better stability to a vehicle involved in a crash.
As well as the pump, the crew also now carry airbags.
These provide a greater lifting capacity, allowing firefighters to rescue people trapped underneath objects.
Newton Abbot crews have used the improved hose reel jets when they were mobilised to reports of a car fire.
On arrival the crews were flagged down by members of the public who guided them to a car which was well alight.
Smoke and flames were issuing from underneath the bonnet of a small hatchback car and were spreading back into the passenger compartment.
The Incident Commander committed two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus taking with them a hose reel to extinguish the fire.
Firefighters paired with the new fire appliance made short work of the car fire and the incident was quickly resolved.