Several area volunteer fire departments are sending equipment on a long, interesting journey that begins with a trailer bound for the Twin Cities and may end in the hands of firefighters in Bolivia or Papua New Guinea.
Today, the Hermantown, Solway, Canosia and Grand Lake Township volunteer departments will donate some of their outdated equipment to the International Fire Relief Mission. Mission workers will pick up the equipment at the Hermantown Fire Hall at noon today.
The hoses, boots and gloves may be a little too worn for U.S. federal safety standards, but they still are useful, said Wally Johnson, a member of the Hermantown Volunteer Fire Department. It's the first time the department has made such a donation.
Mission President Ron Gruening said the nonprofit organization has collected millions of dollars of used equipment to distribute overseas.
Gruening is a retired Minneapolis paramedic and longtime volunteer firefighter. He helped found the organization in 2007 after seeing firsthand the state of firefighting equipment in Moldova, a small country in Eastern Europe.
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Firefighters there were using rubber raincoats for protection, not everyone had his or her own helmet, and only a few portable air packs were available for dozens of firefighters.
Since then, the organization has collected and distributed nearly $4 million worth of used firefighting gear in Moldova -- enough to outfit nearly three-quarters of all fire departments in the country.
The group also has distributed about $1 million worth of equipment in Ukraine, and Gruening has plans to ship containers of equipment to Bolivia, Honduras, Costa Rica and other locations this year.
Typically, departments donate equipment that they have replaced through federal grants, Gruening said. Under the federal grants, the equipment must be "destroyed," he said. Mission volunteers fulfill that need simply by sending it to other countries.
Gruening travels overseas to distribute the equipment, an experience he said is always "very humbling."
"The people that make up those departments are no different than the people here," he said. "You see grown men brought to tears with the excitement of having safe materials to do their jobs."
Gruening credited Johnson with pulling together much-needed equipment from area departments.
"He's done all the footwork for us," Gruening said. "We'll drive up at noon, load it up, and get it back here in the warehouse."
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The donation will include some older air packs and protective gear from the Canosia Township Volunteer Fire Department.
"I think it's great, if someone can use it," said Canosia Chief Laird Erickson.
