Turkey Creek Fire Territory took the next step toward outfitting the exercise room at Fire Station 1 by accepting a $36,549 bid from Direct Fitness Solutions, the vendor supplying physical fitness equipment for the Syracuse Community Center.

The proposed acquisition includes a treadmill, elliptical trainer, multi-station fitness machine, dumbbells and related accessories. Two additional pieces of the heavy-duty exercise equipment will be placed in Fire Station 2.

The vendor “had a representative come to our station and view our physical fitness area so that the appropriate equipment could be quoted to fit our needs and fit into the space that we have available,” Fire Chief Mickey Scott said at Monday’s meeting of the territory’s executive board.

The board approved the expenditure at last month’s meeting and directed Scott to begin the bidding process.

In other news, Scott said the fire department responded to 19 fire calls and 92 EMS calls in February, an increase of 18 runs compared to the January figure.

Scott also reported five firefighters have met the requirements and testing to become state-certified fire instructors, bringing the department’s total to 10. Scott noted, “This benefits our department in increasing our ability to teach fire certification classes to our members versus the expense of sending our personnel to other locations to obtain the necessary training. Our fire instructors can teach any certification class that they themselves are certified in.”

The department acquired a diagnostic software program for its apparatus as approved by the board in January. “Our department mechanic is currently utilizing this software program to diagnose and make repairs as necessary on our apparatus,” thus saving costs of transporting the vehicles to outside vendors.

As an example, Scott reported the mechanic used the program to identify a problem with Truck 1, allowing the repair to be made in house and avoiding a trip to the repair shop in South Bend.

Scott reported the department’s aerial and ground ladders are due for annual testing next month. The testing is required by the department’s insurance company.

“Unfortunately,” noted Scott, “the company that has performed the annual testing and certification for us has gone out of business since last year. We have located another vendor to perform this annual testing and we are working on getting this task completed.”

The department also recently lost its backup generator service provider. The company ceased operations the end of the year. “We were advised that they are currently working with another company that will be acquiring their customer accounts and that we would be contacted by the new company after the acquisition is complete,” Scott said.

The board next meets a 6:45 p.m. Monday, April 13, at Syracuse Town Hall.