The New Iberia Fire Department is sitting pretty with two new service units, thanks to a bond floated by the city of New Iberia last year.

The two trucks replace service units that were around 20 years old. Fire Chief Gordon Copell said the trucks won’t be in service for about two weeks in order to install radios and other necessary equipment inside the trucks.

“We take care of our stuff, so we’ve been able to use those trucks for a long time,” Copell said.

Copell said the department will be keeping one of the older trucks as a reserve unit in case the NIFD is ever in need of one. The chief said the department and city administration are in deliberation about what to do with the other truck.

The brand new units come after the New Iberia City Council and Mayor Freddie DeCourt floated a $1.3 million bond for the purchase of new equipment for the NIFD. Although city funding was initially budgeted to pay for the new equipment, the city decided to float a bond to order the equipment plus the air packs and dedicate the budgeted funds to create a study to look at road repair in New Iberia.

The two trucks came in at $800,000, and the department was also able to purchase new air packs for the firefighters.

Copell said that the new trucks will help toward maintaining a solid credit rating for the fire department.

“If a truck breaks down during a credit rating year, that will affect your score,” Copell said. “This will ensure we don’t have breakdowns for that year.”

Copell said some of the work that still needs to be done includes installing radios in the new trucks, as well as fitting a board in one of the side trunks that equipment like axes can be hung on.

The air packs, or oxygen tanks, are used when firefighters are in dangerous situations. The recently bought packs have already been used and more efficient than the ones the NIFD was previously using.

“These will be in service a long time, probably longer than I will be here,” Copell said with a laugh.