EMERGENCY ONE (E-ONE) won a three-year fleet replacement apparatus contract with the Houston (TX) Fire Department. The $19.6 million contract will upgrade Houston`s fleet with 55 or more new E-One Cyclone II Rescue Pumpers. The fleet replacement contract includes a trade package of 54 pumpers that relieves the department of the challenge of disposing of the older vehicles. The contract will reduce the overall age of the entire Houston fleet, reducing costs in maintenance training, apparatus downtime, and parts inventory.
In the first year, 31 Cyclone II rescue pumpers will be delivered, and eight additional pumpers for each year of the contract. Within the three-year contract term there is an option to increase the number of trucks ordered, and one to add an additional year to the contract. The Houston Fire Department has 82 front-line pumpers and 20 reserves. It protects over 650 square miles of urban, suburban, and rural areas.
Emergency One founder Robert S. Wormser, 67, died September 2 of lung cancer. He is credited with developing the first aluminum body, the first welded aluminum ladder, and the first rear engine pumper. The company grew from a barn where he built the first E-One fire truck to a 223,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. Wormser left the company in 1984.
