New fire engine too big for town

THE NEW fire engine for Montcuq in the Lot is bright red and shiny – and too big for the narrow, twisting climbing streets of the medieval hilltop town.

Unveiled with much pomp to the town’s pompiers and councillors, it did not take long for the firefighters to work out they were going to need all of its fitted 400 metres of hose to reach any fires in the high town.

They told the councillors that the new €250,000 machine was just too big at 7.7m long and 2.55m wide to get through many of the streets – and said that even in the open countryside they would not be able to take the machine off-road.

That means they will have to unhook the two dévidoir hosereels and trundle them off to fight fires.

Even worse, they said, they were losing three smaller vehicles – including a water tanker – that were better adapted to the terrain.

One pompier told La Dépêche that where they previously had 17 cubic metres of water available they now had only the three cubic metres on the new fire engine. They would now also only be able to fight one fire at a time whereas they previously had the capacity to fight three fires at once.

Lt-Col Bernard Tachet, the head of the Lot’s Service Départemental d'Incendie et de Secours, told the paper there had always been inaccessible streets in the department and that the crew were more important than the machine. “Our firefighters are trained to get to action in all circumstances. There is no operational problem."