Durham fire team shows off its new $2M truck, which was designed to save lives
Capt. Marty Pearce saves people for a living.
He saves them from cars swept away by floods. He saves them from glitching elevators. And he even helped save a man found unresponsive on a crane towering above downtown Durham.
Pearce is part of the Durham Fire Department’s Rescue 1 company, which specializes in rescuing people from complicated situations, from crumpled cars to collapsed trenches. Pearce and his crew’s job just got a little easier and more efficient, he said, as the city recently rolled out a brand new rescue truck that cost more than $2 million.
New Rescue 1 truck bigger, better
Acting Division Chief Josh Sloan explained where the new truck fits in the fire fleet. Fire engines are mainly used for fire suppression. The ladder trucks help pull people from windows or cut holes in a roof to ventilate a fire.
Rescue 1 is a carefully designed life-saving toolbox on wheels to help firefighters overcome challenge after challenge to pull someone from a dangerous situation, fire officials said.
Behind one of the truck’s red doors sit baskets that carry people from fires and rivers. Behind another are tools to help firefighters shore up an escape route in a collapsed home or trench. Other compartments hold powerful tools that can cut people from a modern plastic car or blow up a bag that can lift up about 90 tons.
“Pretty much anything that anybody would ever throw at us. The rescue truck has some form of tool to help start that mitigation process,” Sloan said.
Rescue 1 decommissioned
The Rescue 1 company was first commissioned in the 1960s, responding to emergency medical service calls before ambulances were around, CBS 17 reported in 2019. The city decommissioned Rescue 1 in 2000, but brought it back in 2019 using a 2006 model that was much smaller, fire officials said.
The new truck carries double the equipment and gives firefighters easier and faster access to a compartment of chains, two blow up boats and many different kinds of saws.
The goal is to get anyone who experienced trauma to the hospital within one hour, Pearce said, as time can be the difference in someone’s survival and recovery.
Firefighters dissect a car
On Saturday morning, Pearce and other firefighters stood before Rescue 1 preparing to demonstrate how efficient their teamwork can be.
The men stood covered in their heavy turnout gear before the new truck in a parking lot at a Saturday Cars & Coffee event along Page Road. In front of the men sat a blue Dodge Caliber, with its front smashed in.
Tim Mckoy, a Durham firefighter recruiter, explained through a microphone to the watching crowd that the firefighters would demonstrate how they extract someone after a crash.
The men carefully broke the car’s windows, cut off the four doors, and pushed the dashboard forward, which sometimes has to be done to pull a person out, Mckoy explained. Within 22 minutes, they finished the dissection by cutting off and removing the roof.
A source of pride
In addition to improving the rescue process, the new truck is also building excitement and pride, Pearce said. The trucks are rare and something that can help recruitment and give young employees something they can work their way up to.
Also, the Durham 41-foot rescue truck is believed to be just a little longer than Raleigh’s rescue truck, a Durham fire official said.
This story was originally published August 2, 2025 at 4:23 PM.
