MFRD adds a new ladder truck to its fleet, comes with an alert system

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - The Mobile Fire-Rescue Department added to its emergency vehicle fleet to keep crews and the community safer when heading to the scene of an emergency.

The brand-new ladder truck comes with lots of bells and whistles. The highlight is the HAAS alert system. It’s essentially a digital light and siren.

As soon as the emergency vehicle’s lights turn on, it sends a message to a driver’s phone who is using navigation. It lets the driver know they are in a 2-mile radius of an emergency vehicle.

Steven Millhouse, the Public Information Officer for MFRD said distracted driving is at an all-time high across the nation.

“We’re really excited about it, again we’ve seen a trend around the nation unfortunately, firefighters, first responders, and paramedics on scenes injured or killed from distracted driving, because of distracted driving, so this is all to keep our first responders safe so that we can keep our civilians safe.”

The new alert system aims to keep drivers and emergency crews safe on the roads.

“People on their phones, music is up loud, a lot of the new model vehicles are pretty much soundproof, so, unfortunately, the lights and sirens, although their very loud and very bright aren’t as effective as they used to be,” said Millhouse, “so we have to come up with new ways to alert people we’re in the area or passing through or that there are emergency scenes in the area.”

The Mobile Fire-Rescue Department is the only fire department along the Gulf Coast that is testing the new alert system.

Fire crews went through a six-hour training to learn about the truck’s new tools.

The new ladder truck is just over a million dollars. It will be housed at Station 7 in the Tillman’s Corner area, off Rangeline road.

For right now, the Mobile Fire-Rescue Department has three trucks equipped with the new HAAS alert system.

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