As of 1300 hours on Saturday January 27, 2024, the new Tanker 8 is in service. The new tanker is a 2023 Freightliner/Pierce with a 3,000 gallon water tank and a 1,250 GPM pump. The unit is equipped with side and rear dumps, and can accept a direct tank fill at a maximum rate of 1,000 GPM.

The officers and members of the Tenth District Volunteer Fire Department would once again like to publicly thank the Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department, specifically Chiefs Durrer and Sutter, for their gracious offering to use Tanker 12 during our down-time. The previous Tanker 8 was involved in a roll-over collision on November 16, 2022. After brief talks with the WVFD leadership, they dropped Tanker 12 off for us to use on November 22, 2022. They recognized that the need for a tanker in our community far exceeded their own. We worked collectively to minimize down-time during regularly scheduled maintenance to ensure our area was adequately protected.

During the 14 months that Tanker 12 was running as Tanker 8, the unit responded to 108 incidents. Out of these responses, 17 of them were working structure or outside fires that required the use of at least one tank of water. The aging piece worked hard, but was very reliable when needed.

In just over 24 hours, the new Tanker has already responded to two calls for service.