Plover FD puts new UTV into service

By Brandi Makuski

Plover firefighters have a new tool to help access rugged landscapes.

Meet 54-UTV1.

Costing $31,000 from a state EMS Flex grant program, the vehicle, and an accompanying trailer, became service-ready on June 13. It can carry five people, with two people in the cab. In the bed, a type of litter known in the fire/EMS world as a Stokes basket, for carrying a patient on a longboard, is strapped atop a 70-gallon water tank, with secured seating on either side.

Fire Chief Mark Deaver said it’s also got a quick-release for dumping the water, if necessary, to accommodate for the additional weight of a patient.

But even with all of their training, Deaver said firefighters and medics can’t operate the vehicle until they’ve passed an ATV/UTV safety training course.

“We aren’t exempt,” he said, chuckling. “And before they can operate it, they also have to ride in the back. We’re only going walking speed, about three-to-five miles an hour, but they still need to know how bumpy it gets.”

The UTV is a 2022 Kubota model, with rear fabrication done by Marshfield-based Stainless & Repair, and has a five-gallon diesel fuel tank. It comes with four spray hoses at each seat, the approximate diameter of a garden hose, that first responders can use as the UTV moves through the flames of smaller wildland fires.

Deaver said it’s designed to compliment, and not replace, a larger fire engine or other vehicle.

“We’ll pull it with our brush truck, so it will be able to go out on wildland fires, or if we have to transport a patient from the Green Circle Trail,” he said.

The vehicle will be visible at this year’s Riverfront Rendezvous, as a water source for attendees and an additional means of patient support, in addition to what the Stevens Point Fire and other local departments will have onsite.