Firefighters at the Pleasant Valley Fire Department spent much of last week with rags and buckets of water in hand, carefully washing their two new fire trucks to a perfect shine.

"You don't pay this much money for fire trucks and not take care of them," said Pleasant Valley Fire Department Captain Ryan Creed.

The department received a $340,000 fire engine last week and a $840,000 ladder truck just a few weeks earlier. Both trucks will help the department fight fires more efficiently, said Assistant Chief Greg Nicholson.

The ladder truck has a 107-foot ladder that extends from the truck's roof and will give firefighters access to the roofs of the Panhandles' larger homes and buildings, Nicholson said. The ladder truck pumps 400 gallons of water per minute and carries tools for forced entry and search and rescue operations.

"The growth we have in the area, a lot of commercial industry with the Wal-Mart coming, the old HSBC, Lowe's, we're getting a lot of multistory buildings and that's what the ladder truck is for," Nicholson said.

The fire engine, also called a "pumper" truck, has a 28-foot ladder and can pump 1,000 gallons of water per minute to suppress a fire.

The engine was one of three delivered around the Indian Land area last week. Indian Land Fire Department and the Charlotte/Van Wyck Road Fire Department also received new fire engines as part of a $5.4 million bond package approved in Nov. 2007.

The bond package paid for 18 fire trucks, one for each department in Lancaster County.

The new equipment may help the departments' ISO ratings. ISO ratings are one factor in determining homeowners' insurance rates. The better the ISO rating, the lower the insurance rate.

Nicholson has been a volunteer firefighter at the Pleasant Valley Fire Department since 1983. He works full-time as a firefighter in Charlotte and said he marvels at the changes in the Pleasant Valley Department.

Until recently, the department only had one fire engine and that's because the area it serviced was mostly farmland.

"I'd have never thought in a million years we'd have a ladder truck," Nicholson said.