Check It Out! Blooming Prairie Gets A New Pumper Truck

The Blooming Prairie Fire Department just took delivery of a brand new pumper truck this week. What a machine!

The truck itself is a mammoth which will help keep property and homes safe in case of fire. As for how much the truck can do, that is another story all together. The new apparatus for the Blooming Prairie Fire Department can hold a "1000-gallons" of water in its tank, pump out 1250 gallons of water per minute, and it has "Slide-In Ladder Storage, Hydraulic Generator," and of course "Emergency LED Lighting."

The truck itself stands 10'6 high and is nearly 34' long according to the stat sheet provided here. Some other surprising stats about this truck is that fully loaded it will weigh more than 36,000 pounds.

Notice that the truck is red and not that funky yellow color some departments have gone to over the years. Why are fire trucks red? Well according to some theories from FireRescue1.com "Some believe fire trucks were first painted red because of early cars. In the 1900s, Henry Ford suggested the color black for his Model T Ford's due to the cheap cost and durability of the paint. With so many black vehicles, it is said that fire brigades wanted the rigs to stand out. Another theory suggests that fire departments wanted their trucks to feature the most expensive color — which was red at the time."

The new pumper for the BPFD joins its "sister" according to a post by the BPFD on social media.

The truck hopefully will be utilized more along the lines of welcoming home state championship athletes than having to battle blazes in the Blooming Prairie community that the fire department serves.

Did you know that the Blooming Prairie Fire Department serves more than just the City of Blooming Prairie? According to the BPFD's Facebook page, the department serves "187 square miles of area in Steele, Dodge, Freeborn, and Mower Counties" in addition to BP proper.