STURGIS — A sure-fire certainty: Fire Chief Scott Lensegrav and the rest of the Sturgis Volunteer Fire Department would have to flip truckloads of pancakes and host years of bake sales to save up enough money to buy such a nice, new fire pumper.
“It would take a long time and a lot of energy,” Mayor Mark Carstensen said.
However, a new-for-2022 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally corporate sponsor, Rosenbauer, an Austria-based builder of fire apparatus worldwide, brought a gift to the community for this week’s rally.
The company is donating a new 1,000-gallon capacity pumper valued at between $650,000-$700,000 to the Sturgis Volunteer Fire Department, which plans to use it to replace two aging trucks in its fleet.
“It’s incredible what this does for our community year-round,” said Carstensen of the truck, which lined up to accompany last Saturday’s Mayor’s Ride.
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“It’s awesome,” he said.
Lensegrav said he has been working toward a sponsorship for a couple of years with Rosenbauer, which operates a facility outfitting fire apparatus near Sioux Falls.
“They finally decided to be a rally sponsor and the city stepped up and got everything going,” he said. “Huge thanks to the city for doing this.”
Lensegrav said the new pumper will replace both the department’s rescue truck and its Engine 4.
He stated in a 2021 annual report that both trucks have exceeded, or are near, their operational life expectancy of 25 years.
In addition to the cost saving, having one apparatus, equipped with the capabilities of two vehicles, ready to respond to a call, also saves on manpower requirements.
“We’ll have one apparatus to respond instead of trying to get two to everything, which is nice because we’re (a) volunteer (department),” he said. “If you can get one good one to the scene with everything good on it, especially like accidents, you’re ahead of the game.
“We’ll have everything from helping get people off the side of a hill to extricating people out of a car to fighting structure fires,” Lensegrav said.
Brian Gaalswyk of Heiman Fire Equipment, a Rosenbauer dealer, said the company prefers making a direct donation to a department.
“This is one way to make sure our sponsorship goes to the fire department, so they benefit from having an apparatus,” he said.
Gaalswyk said Rosenbauer came to the rally to support all the departments in the Black Hills as well as to meet firefighters from across the country who attend the event.
“Scott does a lot of business with us and this is a good way to keep Sturgis in what they need,” he said.
Lensegrav said the pumper will be on display for the company for the remainder of rally week, then be placed in service early next week.
“It’s a major development for the community to get something like this,” Lensegrav said.” It saves tax dollars, and it’s a huge benefit to the safety of the community.”