Found on firehouse.com, here's an appealing story out of Burlington, where one of their older ladder trucks was bought at auction by a local charity, and is being donated to a fire department in Mexico. The giver is the Burlington/Alamance chapter of Sister Cities International. The receiver is the city of Soledad de Graciano Sanchez. The two have been sister cities since 2004.
The Times-News article also compares the departments, noting Burlington serves 50,000 people with 81 firefighters and five stations, while Soledad serves 1.5 million (!) people with 98 firefighters and seven stations. The latter department, the article adds, does not respond to medical calls or conduct inspections. They handle fire calls only, and respond to structures where the construction material of choice is cement.
Read the entire article, which includes some colorful comments and opinions from readers on the donation.
it was a pumper/engine donated. not aladder truck. burlington only has oneladder truck, it is a kme platform. they have a new one on order. there previous truck was an american lafrance big stick which they sold a few years ago to graham.
chucky - 01/27/10 - 12:13