Danville Fire Chief Don McMasters has passed along a request to the City Council Public Services Committee for a $30,000 grant for new auto extrication equipment, which includes new lifting airbags.  Chief McMasters says the old ones need replaced, and that is an absolute necessity.

AUDIO: Twenty-five year old rubber air bags; if you put a lot of pressure in them, that causes the potential of failure.  That could not only make the car then drop back down, injure somebody; or God forbid one of my people might be crawling under it or something to that effect, it could come down on them.  So they obviously have to be taken out of service after a certain period of time.

The request will go to the full City Council at their next meeting, and McMasters hopes they’ll know by August or September if their can get the grant and make the purchase.

Meanwhile, McMasters says the previously reported on full assessment of each and every Danville Fire Station is underway.

AUDIO: I’ve already been in touch with the company myself; giving them some data information that they were wanting as far as our runs, our calls, and our response times and things like that; data that they were asking for, I’ve already provided most of that to them, and the ball is rolling with that.

The City Council had approved a $76,000 contract for the full assessment, designed to set up possible new locations as well as updated stations for well into the future.