Families, firefighters, and even the mayor attended a push-in ceremony to celebrate the arrival of the Morinville Fire Department's new fire truck.
On Friday (Nov. 25), the new engine stopped outside Morinville Town Hall to pick up Mayor Simon Boersma and Chief Administrative Officer Naleen Narayan before driving them to the ceremony.
As the engine pulled into the Don Found Fire Hall, spectators were waiting to get a look at their new engine.
Brad Boddez, fire chief with the town of Morinville, said that this new fire truck is replacing an older one.
"The technological advancements have been far beyond compared to [the old engine], there's a lot of safety initiatives that are better," Boddez said. "We're very excited to have this truck to help protect and serve our community.
Morinville has 45 on-call firefighters in their department. Many of them made it out for the ceremony and offered local kids tours of the fire truck.
"We had a lot of townspeople here... It was a great turnout for the community."
This new engine was approved as part of the town's 2021 capital budget.
The push-in ceremony is a tradition that goes back to the late 1800s when fire departments used hand-drawn pumpers and horse-drawn equipment. Horses couldn't easily back into the station, so firefighters would push the engine by hand.
Now they hold push-in ceremonies to honour these early crews.