Freightliner Donates Fire Truck to Oregon Community

Freightliner LLC recently donated a brand new, bright red, $240,000 fire truck to the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training Academy.

The truck is a 2005 model pumper featuring an American LaFrance body on a Freightliner M2 medium duty chassis. It can carry five firefighters, has a 1,000-gallon water tank and can pump up to 1,000 gallons per minute.
Freightliner LLC president and CEO Chris Patterson gave Gov. Ted Kulongoski the keys to the truck during a ceremony earlier this week at Freightliner LLC's corporate headquarters in Portland.
The fire truck donation was the most recent demonstration by Freightliner of this corporate commitment to community causes. In June Freightliner became principal sponsor of Portland Parks & Recreation's Summer Concert Series, and the company will sponsor the Hesse Exhibition at the Portland Art Museum this fall.
The Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training Academy trains firefighters, police and corrections officers. Next summer the academy will move from Monmouth to a new, $72-million facility in Salem that will include a 1.6-mile driving course for training emergency vehicle operators.
"The academy trains more than 8,000 firefighters a year from 300 fire departments throughout the state. Its graduates help make every one of these communities safer," said Eriks Gabliks, deputy director of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. "In the past, we've used older fire trucks that were retired from service but this new fire truck will give trainees hands-on experience with state-of-the-art fire-fighting equipment. In addition to being used for training firefighters, on occasion the Freightliner pumper may be on call for real emergencies such as large brush fires."
Freightliner LLC, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is one of the top heavy-duty truck manufacturers in North America and a leading producer of medium-duty and specialized commercial vehicles. It produces and markets Class 3-8 vehicles under the Freightliner, Sterling, Western Star, American LaFrance and Thomas Built Buses nameplates.