By John Estridge
Franklin County Commissioners Tom Linkel and Gerald Wendel gave authorization to fellow commissioner Tom Wilson and his road foreman Kent Ruf to seek a replacement for the county’s dump truck recently destroyed by fire at the Oldenburg garage.
Wilson was not present at the Tuesday morning, February 9, meeting because he was driving a snow plow for his district, District 3, while the meeting was ongoing. The county received 6-8 inches of snow Monday night and Tuesday morning. Linkel said District 3 is shorthanded right now, and Wilson told Linkel Wilson could serve the county better trying to clear the roads than participating in a meeting.
A fairly new dump truck, 54,000 miles on the odometer, was destroyed by fire at the Oldenburg garage in the early morning hours of Friday, February 5.
Quick work by the Eagle Volunteer Fire Department of Oldenburg saved the other four trucks in the garage and the garage itself. A truck next to the destroyed truck suffered scorching and an outside mirror melted.
According to Linkel, it is not known what caused the fire. The commissioners called in the State Fire Marshal as a precaution, but he said the fire’s origin was not suspicious in nature. Linkel said the county’s drivers had been out late Thursday night, February 4, clearing roads. They came back and plugged their trucks into the block heaters. They do not know if the cause of the fire involved the block heaters.
“Now we’re in a scramble trying to find a replacement and settling with the insurance company,” Linkel said. “It’s impossible to find a snow truck like what we need sitting on a lot somewhere. There is a couple available, not exactly what we need but we’re short trucks anyway.”
“It’s OK by me,” Wendel said.
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