Roswell Fire Department welcomes 4 new fire engines

ROSWELL, N.M. – Fire departments are on the clock 24/7, and an influx in calls have been keeping crews in one New Mexico community and their equipment very busy.

KOB 4 was there as the department had a fire service tradition that officially debuts the department’s new fire engines.

“A lot of the fire service all around the world is deep in tradition and culture,” said Roswell Fire Department Chief Matt Miller. 

Those traditions took place Wednesday as the Roswell Fire Department added four new additions to their team. They welcomed the additions with a traditional push-in ceremony.

“The push-in ceremony is tradition in the fire service,” said Miller. 

Miller says part of the ceremony is firefighters pushing the new engines into the bay.

“When you get a new fire truck, basically, bless it for good luck and hopefully a 20-year career service to push it in to the bay,” Miller said. 

As for where the tradition comes from.

“The old handcarts, the old engines – whether they were horse-drawn or pulled by the firefighters – when they would get back to their fire stations they would have to push them back into the truck base by hand,” said Miller. 

Miller says the four new engines are crucial to their growing number of calls.

“Traditionally in Roswell, over the past 20 years, the census doesn’t say that Roswell has grown. However, our call volume has grown,” Miller said. 

He says they buy new engines every 20 years, but with the recent uptick in calls, they’re having to use them more.

“20 years ago when we bought a fire engine it would easily last 20 years and even longer. And nowadays, we’re running around 10,000 calls a year to where back then we were running about 3,500 calls a year,”  said Miller. 

Now, Miller says he hopes these engines will serve the community for a while.