Lacombe's fire department is donating a truck to volunteer firefighters in Paraguay.
The fire truck, along with a sea can full of supplies and a van, are being donated to the Cuerpo de Bomberos Voluntarios de la Ciudad de Encarnacion in Paraguay thanks to the Alberta Society for Firefighters Abroad (ASFA) in partnership with Dow Canada.
“It's just phenomenal to be a part of," said Lacombe County Fire Chief Drayton Bussiere. "We're really taking these fire departments from literally nothing—some of them nothing in terms of apparatus and equipment—and providing the abilities to be safer as firefighters and increase the safety of their communities at the same time.
"We have a lot national standards and international standards that require these apparatus and equipment to come out of service. The life spans are valuable and they're necessary but what it also does, what the life span does, is allow us to send this stuff to other fire departments."
This is the seventh donation to the fire department in South America.
“When we got together and decided we wanted to do the project, we were looking for a natural connection somewhere and we actually had a member on the Lacombe Fire Department that was from Paraguay and so that connection was easy to make. Then when we started we committed to being sustainable, we didn’t want to just send one truck and then never go back,” said Bussiere.
The AFSA plans to continue their support.
