WINTHROP — The town’s newest plow truck — a red one delivered at 2 p.m. Thursday — went up in flames 14 hours later during its first run during a snow storm.

Fire Chief Dan Brooks said the plow truck driver had gone up Birch Street and plowed down.

“By the time he came to the bottom, he had smoke coming into the cab,” Brooks said. “The driver jumped out and could see fire coming from under the hood. By the time we got there, the cab was totally destroyed.”

No one was injured. Brooks said the external plow equipment and the dump body appeared to be spared.

Town Manager Jeffrey Woolston said the town had acquired the Ford F-550 cab with a dump body and a plow and a wing under a lease-purchase agreement, and it was insured. Woolston said he didn’t know the cost of the plow truck and would have to research that later.

He said two insurance adjusters had been out to assess the damage on Friday.

“We’re going to get another one,” he said. “We need that size vehicle. As soon as we find out from the insurance company what they plan to do to cover the loss, we will restart our search for a replacement vehicle. It’s not going to cost the town any money to replace it.”

Meantime, the in-town streets will be plowed with the town’s larger plow trucks.

“It will slow things down because we’ll have to be much more careful backing the big trucks into these short side streets,” Woolston said.

The plow truck had been back-ordered, and the previous vehicle used to plow the streets had been traded in to get the new truck.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

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