Fire trucks and good salmon

The department has or is in the process of replacing three of its four trucks, one of which was donated by AbitibiBowater Ltd. Age is the primary reason for replacing the trucks, as some of them were well used. “The mileage is low but some of the conditions they’ve been on, like the back roads, haven’t been great,” says Mark Sapp, a volunteer with the department.

With a loan from the Region of Queens, the first truck replaced was their 1971 GMC Pumper Truck. The new Pumper Truck, sold by Halifax Regional Municipality is a 1987 Ford described as in ‘excellent condition’. “The vehicle fits our operation quite well. It’s not a four wheel drive, which is about the only thing we lost,” says department volunteer Bob Theakston.

This summer, the department got a big boost when AbitibiBowater donated one of its surplus trucks from another area. “It was an initiative by Mark Sapp through a friend of his who was involved in the forestry part of Bowater,” says Theakston.

This surplus truck came out of one of the company’s northern New Brunswick operations, and the only cost was to bring it down to Greenfield.

The AbitibiBowater truck was outfitted for firefighting in the woods, so a little bit of overhauling was necessary to make it compatible. So they took the tank off the old truck, which “was starting to get a little long in the tooth in some places,” and put it on the new one. “Being a country department, we’ve got some loggers and truckers as part of it. They could see nothing wrong with it, and taking the truck and working on it,” says Theakston. “We took two partial trucks and made one good one.”

Recently, the Region of Queens approved a loan for the department to purchase a new rescue truck, which just went out on order. The truck should arrive sometime in the spring.

During a recent council meeting, Counc. Doug Adams praised the department for their timely payments, and for paying back the original loan faster than expected.

To help pay the loans, one thing the department does is supply firefighters at the airport for the drag races. For their support, the department gets a donation from organizers of the event.

A big portion of the funds, says Theakston, comes from a planked salmon supper they have each year in July. This year, the department is also holding one on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14. Tickets are $12 and the dinner starts at around 5 p.m.