New Gloucester Township Fire Truck To Join Fleet Friday Night

GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP, NJ — Gloucester Township’s newest fire engine will enter the fleet with a traditional housing and “Push-In Ceremony” Friday night, township officials announced.

The ceremony, a tradition that dates back to the 1800s, begins at 6 p.m. Friday night at Squad 88’s firehouse located at 1450 Blackwood Clementon Road in Gloucester Township.

The ceremony will conclude after an apparatus procession to the Chews Landing Firehouse located at 43 Somerdale Road in Gloucester Township.

The term “Push-In Ceremony” refers to the process for getting horses back into a firehouse at a time when fire departments used hand-drawn pumpers and horse-drawn equipment.

Upon returning to the firehouse after a call, the horses could not easily back the equipment into the station. They were disconnected from the fire equipment and firefighters would push the equipment back in to the bays themselves.

The subject of this ceremony, a 2021 Pierce 1500 GPM rescue pumper, is the culmination of nearly four years of joint efforts by firefighters and the Boards of Fire Commissioners in the Chews Landing and Blackwood Fire Districts, officials said.

Designated as Squad 88, the new fire truck has been assigned to Gloucester Township’s first ever 24/7/365 on-duty engine company.

The expectation is that Squad 88 will respond to about 1,000 fire and emergency calls annually, primarily in Gloucester Township Fire Districts 2 and 4.

It will also be used to respond to automatic and mutual aid calls in Gloucester Township’s other four fire districts and surrounding communities.

It was designed by a committee of fire officers, firefighters and elected Fire Commissioners from the Chews Landing and Blackwood fire districts.

In early 2018, the Boards of Fire Commissioners in both districts began the planning process to organize an engine company that would be staffed by on duty full time firefighters 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The new company went into service at 8 a.m. on July 8, 2018, officials said. The first engine assigned to the new company was a 14-year-old pumper truck.

Squad 88 replaces the now 17-year-old pumper, which has been placed in reserve to fill in when other front-line apparatus from Chews Landing or Blackwood are out of service.