Rescue Squad 1 is a 1993 Pierce Lance Heavy Rescue powered by a Detroit 8V92TA, 450 horsepower Diesel engine with an Allison HT-740 automatic transmission.

It is equipped with a Wilburt 6,000-watt lighttower powered by a WINCO 25,000-watt generator. The unit has a six-bottle high pressure cascade system.

Squad 1 carries a full complement of Amkus rescue tools, cribbing and all the equipment necessary for vehicle rescue and extrication as well as firefighting.

About one-fourth of the units average 700-annual responses are to neighboring Montgomery County, where it is automatically dispatched on all personal injury accidents and structure fire assignments in most of Takoma Park on the initial alarm.

As a rescue squad, the unit responds to about 800 calls annually.

Just a few months after being placed in service in 1996 as a full squad (after a prelimary trial period while still only an MSU), Squad 1 was the second-due heavy rescue unit to the Amtrak-MARC train crash in Silver Spring that killed 11 people.

The unit also has a 20,000-lb. winch on the rear. The body is made of aluminum and the unit is painted red with a white stripe and white scotchlite. The initial cost of the unit was about $450,000.