11 new fire engines worth £2m in Staffordshire

The appliances will be used across the county before anywhere else in the country, and it is the largest number brought into the service in more than a decade.

Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s chief fire officer Becci Bryant said: "We are taking the delivery of a total of 11 new fire engines over the next few months. They will all be operational by Christmas.

"The first one is already at Hanley and the crews are training on it.

"They are the first vehicles of this type in the country, it's a couple of a million pounds worth of investment from our budget."

The vehicles come after two years of work, with staff helping to design them and them being transported from Austria where they are built.

From lower emissions to camera and health and safety technology, the fire engines have a number of new features.

"We don't go to a factory and buy them, we buy a lorry chassis then built a fire engine around it," Ms Bryant added.

"The technology is extraordinary, so different from the engines I first learned on.

"It's one of the biggest steps forward in terms of the look, they're slightly lighter and narrower and carry a couple of hundred more litres of water.

"There's also different equipment such as a camera that gives a 360° view of the scene. It also has a battery-operated road traffic collision kit, which is a brilliant piece of kit.

"The vehicles are Euro 6 engines, and are cleaner in terms of emissions, some are reduced by 80 per cent in comparison to the Euro 5 models. We've got no date for when electric engines will come in but these are the most efficient we were able to secure.

"They're going to be head-turners on the road, they do look different.

"The oldest fire engines will be taken out of circulation when these are used."

The new engines will be officially launched at an event later this month at Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service's headquarters in Stafford.