photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Community members wash the city's new hybrid electric fire truck on Aug. 7, 2026 as part of a ceremony to celebrate the truck's first day of service.

New Lawrence fire chief Joe Hardy admits that initially he wasn’t too charged up about the idea of an electric hybrid fire engine being added to the city’s fleet of firefighting equipment.

But Friday, Hardy and dozens of other fire department officials and community members were plenty excited about the city’s new electric hybrid fire engine being put into service.

“This fire truck is the first of its kind in the state of Kansas, so Lawrence is leading from the front here,” Hardy told a crowd that gathered Friday afternoon at Fire Station No. 4 in west Lawrence to participate in a push-in ceremony for the truck, commemorating its first day in service.

Hardy, who was named the city’s fire chief on Friday after serving as acting chief since late 2024, said he began seeing the value of the hybrid technology after he learned more about how dangerous frequent exposure to the exhaust fumes of traditional fire engines can be. When used in electric mode, those fumes are a nonissue.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A row of officials, including city commissioners and Lawrence’s new city manager, participated in a push-in ceremony for the city’s new hybrid electric fire engine on Aug. 7, 2026 at Fire Station No. 4 along Wakarusa Drive in west Lawrence.

The city has had the fire engine for months, but has been testing and equipping it for service.

Hardy said he now feels confident in the truck’s reliability after seeing how easily it can be switched into its diesel power mode, if ever there is a time that the fire engine loses its charge or has some other difficulty with the electrical system.

Now, a big task for the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical department will be to document that reliability. The department and city leaders will want to have lots of data about the fire engine as the city makes decisions in the future about how much of its fleet should be converted over to the hybrid electric technology.

Hardy said he expects fire departments from across the state will be watching the results closely, and the fire engine’s manufacturer also is closely monitoring the truck’s performance as well. The Lawrence fire engine is one of a handful that manufacturer — Pierce — has in service across the country. Seeing how it performs in the wide range of weather conditions Kansas produces is expected to something both the city and the manufacturer documents.

“We are a data driven department,” Hardy said. “We look at data and we make our decisions based off the data that’s been given to us. We haven’t closed the door (on more hybrids). We have opened it to see what our opportunities are.”

As the Journal-World reported, the City Commission in early 2024 made the decision to order a pair of hybrid electric fire engines, at a total price of $3.96 million. Later that year, as the Journal-World reported, the city approved an approximately $1 million contract for charging equipment and infrastructure to support the two fire trucks.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Lawrence City Commissioner Amber Sellers gets a tour of the inside of the city’s new hybrid electric fire engine on Aug. 7, 2026.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Local children were among those lending a hand to wash the city’s newest fire engine at a ceremony at Fire Station No. 4 in west Lawrence on Aug. 7, 2026.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The grill of the city’s newest fire engine is pictured on Aug. 7, 2026.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The city’s new hybrid electric fire engine is pictured at Fire Station No. 4 on Aug. 7, 2026.