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McPherson firefighters attend pre-build meeting for engine due in early 2027

The 2003 engine now in front-line service at Station 1 will shift to reserve status once the replacement arrives.

Greg Loving, Cronkite

21 Aug 2026 • 2 min read

MFD

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McPherson's Station 1 will keep running its 2003 fire engine until at least early 2027, when the department expects delivery of the replacement it ordered in October 2024. In a Facebook post Wednesday, Aug. 19, the McPherson Fire Department said several of its members and its apparatus salesman had spent a few days that week in Appleton, Wisconsin, for the engine's pre-build meeting — the design and specification review that locks in a custom rig's build before it goes into production.

"We also discovered that thanks to inflation, our apparatus budget does not go nearly as far as it used to," the department wrote in the same post.

The order is one piece of a multi-year fleet turnover: the department unveiled two new attack trucks in February 2026, and the city commission approved a separate ladder truck purchase for the department in March 2026.

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