60 Years in the Making

Halltown’s First New Truck

For six decades, the Halltown Fire Protection District has answered the call with whatever it could get its hands on. Every engine, every tanker, every brush truck in the fleet came to us used or surplus — kept running by volunteers who know how to stretch a dollar and turn a wrench. In 2026, our 60th anniversary year, that changed. For the first time in the district’s history, HFPD placed a brand-new truck in service.

On Saturday, April 18, we gathered at Station 1 on Elm Street for a traditional push-in ceremony — the century-old fire service custom of the community physically rolling the new rig into the bay by hand. Neighbors, families, and firefighters put their hands on the truck and pushed it home. For an all-volunteer department of 11, it was a moment we’d waited a long time for.

The truck is a 2026 Ford F550 4×4 brush/rescue unit, built out with a custom Alum-Line aluminum bed and a Feld Fire skid carrying 400 gallons of water. It’s purpose-built for the work our district actually does: motor vehicle accidents and extrications on Interstate 44, medical calls, grass and vehicle fires. The complete package ran just over $118,000 — over a full year of our operating budget.

Here’s the part we’re proudest of: we paid for it in cash. No debt, no note, no loan. The truck was funded entirely through property tax revenue, FEMA storm reimbursements, and cost-recovery fees from accident responses — money set aside dollar by dollar in our Large Equipment Fund over several years of disciplined saving.

“This truck represents everything our volunteers have worked toward. In 60 years, we’ve never been able to say we bought something new. We did this the right way — saving, planning, and making every tax dollar count for the community that trusts us.”

— Rob Maupin, Chairman,
HFPD Board of Directors

The timing matters. HFPD’s call volume has grown sharply — from 122 incidents in 2023 to 340 in 2025 — driven largely by wrecks on I-44, which carries tens of thousands of vehicles through our district every day. With the Route 66 Centennial bringing even more traffic through Halltown in 2026, having a modern, purpose-built response unit on the road couldn’t have come at a better time.

Like a lot of small Missouri departments, we do big work on a small budget in an economically disadvantaged county, staffed entirely by volunteers who hold full-time jobs elsewhere and show up anyway. This new truck doesn’t change who we are — it just gives our people better tools to keep doing the job.

Sixty years of service. Eleven volunteers. One community. And finally, a truck of our own.

The Halltown Fire Protection District is a 100% all-volunteer department serving approximately 110 square miles of rural Lawrence County.