Stop 42 – The Department Today

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Today's equipment would amaze the volunteers who pulled hand pumpers through muddy streets.

In two thousand three, the city bought a Sutphen rescue pumper for about three hundred three thousand dollars. It pumps fifteen hundred gallons a minute, carries a thousand gallons of water, and has seats and air packs for six firefighters in an enclosed cab. In two thousand five, the department traded in its old aerial tower for a Smeal truck from Snyder, Nebraska, with a one-hundred-five-foot ladder. It cost about five hundred thirty-nine thousand dollars.

The challenges have changed too. Firefighters now train for hazardous chemical spills, and for fires in electric and hybrid cars. And like volunteer departments all over the country, Nebraska City faces a new challenge: fewer people are volunteering.

The big photograph shows the members of the department in two thousand seven, in front of Fire House Number One. Their names are listed below, by company, still the same three companies that started it all more than a hundred fifty years ago.