Blaine County Rural Fire Department Gifted New Fire Truck
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Courtesy Photo
Courtesy Photo Pictured left to right are: Fire fighter Grant Stout, Blaine County Commissioner Miles Hutton, BLM Robert Smith, Retired Fire Chief Kraig Hansen, BLM Sawyer Kindle, and Fire Chief Scott Gallus.
BCJ Staff
The Blaine County Rural Fire Department received a donation of a new/used fire truck to be used for wildland fires in Blaine County. The truck comes equipped with safety features and firefighting equipment to effectively respond to wildland fires. The Engine is a Type 6 Engine with a 280 gallon tank.
The donation came from the Bureau of Land Management Rural Fire Readiness Program. Rural fire departments are awarded trucks and equipment based on an application that is submitted to the BLM program. “The program enables the BLM to donate equipment that has reached the Federal Governments maximum hours for regular and constant use. However, a volunteer department can still get a lot of good years out of it” said Gina Baltrusch, PAO, BLM North Central Montana District.
When an engine hits the hourly limit the BLM solicits applications from the volunteer departments within the district, and from those applications the State Fire Management Personnel and District FMOS decide who receives them. Once a replacement is received by the BLM they can then donate the old one.
Bureau of Land Management employees Robert Smith, Sawyer Kindle and Kevin Henry were happy to deliver the truck to the department last week.
The Blaine County Fire Department services a wide area to include Chinook, Harlem, Fort Belknap Agency, Hays/LodgePole, Turner, Zurich, Lloyd and Savoy and plans to put the truck into service immediately and will help provide better service to those in Blaine County.
