Roy Fire & Rescue holds push-in ceremony celebrating return of city’s first fire engine
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- A front view of Roy’s first motorized fire engine, taken during a Thursday, May 2, 2024, push-in ceremony acknowledging its return to the city.
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- Retired firefighters and members of the community splash Roy’s first motorized fire engine upon its return to the city — a push-in ceremony tradition — on Thursday, May 2, 2024..
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- A side view of Roy’s first motorized fire engine, taken during a Thursday, May 2, 2024, push-in ceremony acknowledging its return to the city.
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- Roy firefighters wipe down the city’s first motorized fire engine during a push-in ceremony celebrating its return to the city Thursday, May 2, 2024.
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- A side view of Roy’s first motorized fire engine, taken during a Thursday, May 2, 2024, push-in ceremony acknowledging its return to the city.
ROY -- A crowd gathered at Roy City Fire & Rescue Station 31 on Thursday evening as the department officially welcomed home an important piece of its history, as well as that of the community at large.
The first-ever motorized fire engine to serve Roy has been returned to the city, an occasion that was marked with a push-in ceremony at the station. Firefighters past and present -- including former chiefs and retirees who actually used the engine -- were on hand to celebrate its homecoming.
According to Fire Chief Theron Williams, the engine is a 1956 model built in New York by American LaFrance. Roy Fire was established the prior year, and the engine arrived at Union Station for transport to Roy shortly thereafter.
It would go on to see extensive action with the department over the next several years, and its post-retirement journey throughout Northern Utah was similarly eventful.
"When I became chief, one of the older chiefs, Jon Ritchie, asked me if I could get it back," Williams told the Standard-Examiner. "And it's taken me three months to get it."
Over the years, the engine had been relocated a number of times. It was at a museum in Roy, went to Salt Lake City for a time and, eventually, landed at the Utah Fire Museum in Grantsville. However, determining the actual ownership of the vehicle was a bigger issue than its physical location.
"It had a magnet that said, 'Salt Lake City Fire.' But, really, it wasn't their fire truck. It was ours," Williams said.
"So, I went down and talked to the museum, and they said Salt Lake City actually owns it. Then I went through some individuals that I knew at Salt Lake City Fire -- their union actually owned it. So, I reached out and said, 'How could we get it back?' And they graciously gave it back to us."
With the engine's title in hand, the department was able to bring it back to Weber County, where Roy's firefighters worked to clean it up. Along the way, it was sent to Siddons-Martin Emergency Group for additional restorative work.
Williams estimates that Siddons-Martin donated more than $4,000 in time and work to get it into a better-running condition. Now that it has been restored, the plan is to keep it at Station 31 and bring it out for special occasions.
"It's back in Roy, and we hope it never leaves," Williams said. "We'll use it for parades, for firefighter funerals and for other city events."