A fire truck from Foothills County has made its way down to Belize.
The former fire chief for the Black Diamond Fire Department (now the Diamond Valley Fire Department) had retired one of their fire trucks a couple of years ago that had reached its end of life, according to the North American Standards, and decided to help out a community in Central America.
“With that, Fire Departments often look at opportunities to try and extend the life of these vehicles in departments that simply don’t have the means to have a fire apparatus,” explained current Diamond Valley Fire Chief TJ Moore. “Often times that is third world countries, some places to the south of us that benefit from this. So, former Fire Chief Jamie Campbell had partnered with an organization to send the retired fire truck from Black Diamond down to Hopkins in Belize.”
The community of Hopkins never had a fire truck before this one, and they were in desperate need of it.
Before sending the truck down to Hopkins, the Black Diamond Fire Department removed only the equipment they needed to continue doing their jobs and sent the rest down with the truck.
“Sent it to the organization called Southern Emergency Services Belize and allowed them to work with their partners to get the truck down there. My understanding is one of the delays that required to get it down there was getting it on an aircraft so it could fly down there, and that was through a partnership with the military, is my understanding,” adds Moore.
Moore wants to add that this was a great initiative from the prior Fire Chief, Jamie Campbell.
The Fire Truck was a gift from the community to the Town of Hopkins.
The community of Hopkins was so happy about the Fire Truck that they posted a video to Facebook showing off their new truck.
In the video, they add that while they now finally have a fire truck, there aren’t any fire hydrants for them to connect to, so they are having to travel to fill up the truck, and then return to the fire.
To watch the video from Hopkins, click on the embedded video below.
