ARLINGTON — When the Arlington Fire Department officially presented its new 2015 Rosenbauer Commander engine and ladder trucks to the public at Station 46 June 6, fire chief Bruce Stedman warned civilians in attendance that he’d be putting them to work.

Sure enough, siblings Elana and Daniel Grishchenko were picked out of the crowd to hose out the engine’s wheel-wells, before a throng of firefighters, city officials and other onlookers were tasked with helping push the engine into the bay that will serve as its home at the station.

Stedman, who had spoken about the need to discard harmful traditions while preserving positive ones, noted that watering down the truck was a tradition that dated back to when fire vehicles were horse-drawn carriages that would return to the station covered in dung.

“There are other traditions, like firefighters hanging on the tailboards as they went out to answer calls that we don’t follow anymore,” Stedman said. “We don’t even have tailboards on these new rigs because when we did our firefighters fell off, and it got them hurt and even killed.”

Stedman credited a number of firefighters, including deputy chief Tom Cooper and Capt. Dave Kraski, with devoting hundreds of hours to studying fire vehicle designs, and determining which ones would serve them best. “These rigs probably wouldn’t be perfect for Seattle, but they’re perfect for Arlington and what we do,” Stedman said.

He thanked Mayor Barbara Tolbert and the City Council and voters for approving the levy lid lift that allowed the fire department to purchase the vehicles, even in the wake of an economic downturn.

Stedman also pointed to a new tradition, which tied local firefighters to a national tragedy, and impressed upon them the importance of their service.

Station 46 houses one of the steel beams from the original World Trade Center that was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York. When new firefighters are inducted into the department, they touch the steel.

“The community expects us to put our lives on the line for people we might not even know,” Stedman said. “We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard.”