Borough Lends Piece of Fire Department Equipment to Woodcliff Lake

On Sunday morning Fort Lee Fire Department and other borough officials will travel to a firehouse in Woodcliff Lake in northern Bergen County for a ceremony commemorating the beginning of a shared services agreement between the two boroughs for an air bottle-refilling trailer called a mobile cascade system, said Fort Lee Fire Chief Jeff Silver this week.

“The mayor’s going, and [Fort Lee's] fire liaison, Harvey Sohmer, is going at this point, and they’re going to have people from their government there,” Silver told Patch.

A long-standing request by the borough of Woodcliff Lake Fire Department to borrow the seldom-used piece of equipment owned by the Fort Lee Fire Department finally met with Fort Lee’s approval in May, when the two boroughs signed a long-term agreement for Fort Lee to lend the mobile cascade system to Woodcliff Lake.

The piece of equipment is a fire department vehicle obtained by an Office of Emergency Management grant in 2004, Fort Lee Borough Administrator Peggy Thomas said in March.

“It’s basically an SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) fill station on wheels; it fills the tanks,” explained Silver to the Fort Lee Mayor and Council at an executive session at the time. “It’s a mobile version of what we have in [Fire Station] No. 2, which is our SCBA fill station.”

Silver added that the vehicle has only been used “four to six times” since it was acquired with the OEM grant in 2004.

According to an article published on NorthJersey.com, Woodcliff Lake officials estimate the rig will save them about $60,000—the approximate cost of a new one—and say their borough has been paying a private contractor $800 to $1,000 a year to fill their air bottles.

Under the agreement, which runs through April 2016 and is renewable if both boroughs remain in accord, Fort Lee will continue to own the vehicle, but Woodcliff Lake will house and maintain it. It will also be available to Montvale and Park Ridge, according to the Pascack Valley Community Life report.

Sunday’s ceremony is at 10:30 a.m. at the Woodcliff Lake Firehouse at 180 Pascack Road and will feature a question and answer session and possibly a demonstration.