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Phil Kenter likens it to a Swiss Army knife for fire departments. “It’s got everything,” said the ex-captain of Riverhead’s Fire Police Patrol Company No.1 as he led a reporter and photographer on a tour Saturday morning of the new command truck the company has just acquired.

And what a magnificent vehicle it is - 36 feet long, able to transport 16 firefighters, with a full emergency medical treatment galley, satellite communications, access to the Internet for tracking weather conditions, a searchlight atop a 30-foot tower, a video camera to survey a scene from a distance, and even a restroom, something no local fire truck ever had before.

“We have a lot more women in the department now,” Mr. Kenter explained, “so the bathroom makes sense.” In fact, the immediate past captain of Company 1 is Connie Kwasna, who was along on Saturday’s tour and who, like Mr.Kenter, was a member of the truck committee that helped design the vehicle to fit the company’s particular needs.

The truck cost $492,000, which came out of the Riverhead Fire Department’s capital fund, so no bond issue was required. It was custom-fitted to specifications by Saulsbury Fire Equipment in Ocala, Fla., where Ms. Kwasna and Mr.Kenter visited three times while the big machine was being built to suit.

According to Ms. Kwasna, the department decided to spend $90,000 to sheath the truck’s box in stainless steel to increase safety. An aluminum body would have been less expensive, she explained. But at the time the truck committee was coming up with its specs, the tragic accident had occurred on Route 25 in Aquebogue that killed two Riverhead EMTs, 23-year-old Heidi Behr and 30-year-old William Stone. The box of the ambulance in which they were traveling en route to the hospital had ripped apart upon impact with a tree when the driver swerved to avoid hitting a truck. That vehicle was made of aluminum.

“We thought of Heidi and Bill and decided we wanted the extra protection,” Ms. Kwasna explained.

According to Mr. Kenter, the new truck is pressed into service on every call, no matter which of the RFD’s other five companies are involved. Its maiden run was in mid-November for the gigantic fire in a hay-filled barn at Wells Farm on Sound Road in Northville. Members of the Fire Patrol Company, all trained in first-aid and CPR, in addition to fighting fires, had remained at the scene throughout the night.

“Because our district is so huge, we need a truck in which we can literally carry with us everything firefighters may need,” Mr. Kenter said. “This holds everything that’s needed to support everybody else,” including 64 replacement air bottles and an impressive 40,000-watt generator to power lights and fans.

Mr. Kenter describes the Riverhead Fire District as the largest volunteer district on Long Island and second largest in New York State, covering 48 square miles, including parts of Brookhaven and Southampton. The Fire Police Patrol Company also responds to calls from three ambulance districts: Riverhead, Flanders and Manorville.

According to Ms. Kwasna, the vehicle the new truck replaces dates to 1981, bringing it to 25 years, the age at which, she said, both OSHA and the insurance industry recommend fire equipment be retired.

© 2007 Times-Review Newspapers