ROCKLAND — Every Thursday, come rain, snow or sunshine, the Rockland Fire Department pulls Tower Truck 3 out and Patrick Lowe takes the ladder up 97 feet to make sure it’s in proper working order. But, it is a lot more involved than that. Every system is inspected and every piece of equipment on the truck is checked to ensure it is ready if called into service.

At 46 feet, 11 inches long, RFD’s 2006 American LeFrance fire truck was purchased in November 2006 for $730,000. The behemoth of a truck weighs in at 70,000 pounds.

“We have the tower, Camden has a straight stick, and Thomaston has a quint,” said chief Charlie Jordan.

Quint is short for quintuple combination pumper or quint. The name derives from Latin and means five. It refers to the five functions the quint provides: Pump, water tank, fire hose, aerial device and ground ladders.

A straight stick means the truck is only fitted with a nozzle at the end of the ladder and has no bucket for a firefighter to occupy.

“The trucks provide the county with reasonable and varied ladder coverage,” said Jordan. “There are built-in safety features that won’t allow you to tip yourself over on Tower 3. There are so many safety features that it borders on taking away some of the effectiveness sometimes.”

Jordan said the truck should last for 30 years or better.

“We got about $200,000 from the community to help buy the truck,” said Jordan. “The most expensive truck we had purchased prior to this one was for $185,000.”

Tom Shook is the second air of eyes on the truck. His job is to man the second set of controls at the base of the ladder and watch for signs of danger that the man 97 feet in the air might not see.

“The truck carries its own generator to power the lights, bucket and any power tools we might need up there,” said Shook. “The truck will carry four people. The driver of course drives the truck. Next to him the man in the passenger seat controls the siren. That way all the driver has to do is drive and not be distracted by using the siren. When a tone goes out we will be out the door in fewer than three minutes. Once on scene we can have the truck set up and in use in two to five minutes.”

The truck also carries a thermal camera.

The truck is a rolling tool box, but not like anything you’ve seen before. Its has specialized tools to do specific jobs. All for fighting fires and this truck is just about the right size to hold them.  Extension cords, axes, tarps, rolls of heavy plastic, drinking water, first aid kits, heavy sledge hammers, fire extinguishers, hose, ladders, rescue baskets and chain saws specific for cutting through a roof effortlessly and quickly. The only thing the truck doesn’t carry is its own water supply.

There are even special pet masks for reviving animals rescued from a burning structure. The Scot air packs that firemen wear supple for 30 minutes. On Tower 3 the air packs supply 60 minutes of air.

The Boston Rake, the San Francisco Hook and New York Roof Hook were all named after the city they became popular in. These tool designs are good for certain tasks, according to Shook.

“The Boston Rake is great at taking down plaster walls,” he said. “The New York Roof Hook was actually a tool the police found at a burglary. They adapted it and it’s become a very popular hook in the fire service.”

Tower Truck 3 has helped downtown businesses get a reduced rate on their insurance.

“Local businesses are saving money on their insurance because we have this type of truck,” said Jordan. “Rockland is in an area that requires us to have one for insurance rating purposes. We don’t use it as much as New York City uses theirs and it’s done its best work out of town. We all work together in mutual aid and we’re just fortunate that we haven’t had a big fire in Rockland since we got it.”

“You don’t have to be certified to operate it, but you do have to be trained,” said Jordan. “It’s one of those things where there are basics of it and then there is someone who is very, very good at it. You’ll feel the difference and every once in a while you’ll feel it jerk and it’ll feel like you’re going to fall over, but you can’t. One of the reasons we did what we did was for the ladder that’s on there. Ladder Towers Inc. has never had a failure.”

The current fire station has occupied its current address at 118 Park Street since 1971. The former fire station was in what is now the municipal parking lot on Museum Street.