Former Ephrata fire truck goes to Mexico

EPHRATA — An aging fire truck is leaving Ephrata soon for its new home in Mexico.

Dave Canfield is finalizing travel arrangements to send the 1975 truck to start a fire department in La Union, Mexico. Canfield owns a resort in the area.

“Being down there now for four years, we began to see a lot of needs in the area,” he said. “These are people who have a very small, rural medical clinic, no hospital. They have no ambulance, no fire truck.”

The city designated the truck as surplus last summer. City Administrator Wes Crago said the truck would be a liability, when the city is reviewed by the Washington Surveying and Rating Bureau. The organization rates how prepared a city is for fires, their ratings affect homeowners’ insurance rates.

The truck might be worth as much as $15,000, but the city wasn’t likely to be able to sell it for that price, Crago said.

“We investigated whether or not a community could use this locally … if the community was worried about those standards, they’re a community that probably has a volunteer fire department and they’re not going to be able to afford the manpower in order to staff this as their second rig,” he said. “So the effective value of this is zero.”

The truck may not help any of the communities in the area, but Canfield said it would help La Union, which lacks any kind of emergency services vehicles. When Canfield met with the president of the county, Canfield asked what America could do to help. The president answered the area needed fire trucks and ambulances.

“We kind of looked at each other and thought, ‘There’s got to be surplus equipment we can go find.’ Little did I ever dream, it would be in my own community.”

Canfield is arranging the transportation of the truck and purchased supplies for it. The Mexican county will house it and make sure there is staff to operate the equipment.

“We’ve sent him pictures of the fire truck that he’s put up around the county,” Canfield said. “These are people who are humble, hardworking people … I think it’s an opportunity for us to reach out to them.”