The Livingston Fire Department’s fire fighting capabilities took a tremendous jump Tuesday with the arrival of their new Quint fire truck. The new truck will be able to perform a variety of functions the department could not complete before.

Livingston Police Chief Terry Peeler said the truck had several functions that would benefit the department tremendously.

“The Quint is kind of the new thing on line and it as a lot of rescue capabilities,” Peeler said. “It has pump capabilities and a lot of other functions. It has six in all.”

Peeler said the truck would come in handy in many different ways.

“There are a lot of ways we can use this truck,” Peeler said. “We are just grateful that we were able to get the grant to put this in our arsenal.”

Livingston Mayor Tom Tartt said the need for a truck like this had existed for some time because of the multi story buildings in the area.

“For many years we had known that we had a need for a truck of this capacity, particularly with the university and its numerous two, three and even four story buildings they have on campus,” Tartt said. “The county also has several two story buildings including the courthouse so we knew we needed the truck.”

The truck was more of a dream than anything when the search began. Tartt said they had originally set their sites on a second hand truck, but were able to get a brand new truck through the efforts of Chief Peeler.

“We started for the last couple of years very aggressively searching for a used truck because if they are well maintained they will last you 25 or 30 years,” Tartt said. “Through the efforts of Chief Peeler he was able to acquire a grant through FEMA that paid almost 95 percent of the cost, almost $500,000.”

Tartt said the greatest part about securing the grant and purchasing the truck was it came at virtually no cost to the citizens of Livingston.

“We are very fortunate to have this Class-A piece of equipment for our department,” Tartt said. “Especially at virtually no cost to the taxpayers. The only thing it really cost is was building a place to keep it.”

Tartt said he hoped the truck could be used only for fun, but if a serious situation occurred they were glad to know they could handle it.

“We hope we wear it out in parades,” Tartt said. “We hope we never have to use it in an emergency, but it is sure nice to know you have it in case of emergency.”