DH&L Fire Company buys new truck, sells original ladder vehicle

Marcia Moore, The Daily Item, Sunbury, Pa.
·2 min read

Jun. 19—SELINSGROVE — Dauntless Hook and Ladder Fire Company has acquired a new 100-foot tower truck and sold its original ladder truck to a private buyer in Georgia.

The new $1.6 million truck is a state-of-the-art vehicle that will provide more safety and versatility to firefighters and the community, Deputy Chief Jason Kline said.

With it, emergency responders will be able to reach high altitudes in a bucket rather than a ladder.

"It will be easier coaxing nursing home residents out of a second story into a bucket than onto a ladder," Kline said.

The new truck is the pride of the Selinsgrove company members who took it out for a spin Monday evening. Matt Maneval, one of the longer-serving fire company members with 41 years of experience, was invited to drive it but declined.

"I drove it one night, that's enough," he said. "I don't have a lot of fever for it."

Maneval does have advice for colleagues eager to get behind the wheel.

"This is not like your pickup. It doesn't stop or corner like your pickup," he said.

Two other vehicles joined the trip through the borough Monday night, a 1998 ladder truck that has been sold to a fire company in Louisville, Ky., for $85,000, and the 1963 truck that sold to a private buyer in Augusta, Ga., for $5,000. Both vehicles were taken from the Selinsgrove station to their new owners Tuesday morning.

Scott Adkins, a sales representative from Kentucky who arranged the truck sales, said the antique 1963 fire truck is "unique. They don't build a truck like that anymore."

The vehicle was purchased by DH&L for $41,000 in February 1963, launching the department as a ladder company, Assistant Chief Jason Kaufman said.

It was sold in 1998 for $3,500 to private collector Bob Sutcliffe, of Orangeville. Twenty years later, Sutcliffe sold the vehicle back to DH&L.

Instead of warehousing the antique truck, the fire company kept it at the station and brought it out for solemn occasions, such as the funerals of DH&L Fire Chief Brandon Ulrich's grandfather, Alfred Ulrich, and his father, Frederick Ulrich, who were members of the fire company in 1963 and 1998, respectively.

A condition of the sale of the 1963 ladder truck to the private collector is the Selinsgrove name etched on the body will remain intact.

"It's going to be restored and live a good life," Kaufman said.