Working together to bolster firefighting capabilities, the BLM has donated a water tender to the Cedarville Volunteer Fire Department.
John Toomey, fire management officer for the Applegate Field Office, said, “This unit has served the BLM well, and still has plenty of service life left.”
The 1997 diesel-powered tender has a 3,000-gallon water tank and is designed to draft water from a source such as a pond, stream, or hydrant and haul it to fire engines working on the fireline. This vehicle is ruggedly built, enabling it to help during wildland fire incidents.
Cedarville Fire Chief Jim Hill said the unit will replace an older water tender. It will support the department’s wildland fire engine and two engines designed for fighting structure fires.
The water tender was provided to the volunteer department under the BLM’s Rural Fire Readiness Program, which provides equipment to qualifying fire departments that cooperate with the BLM and assist in fighting fires on public lands.
This marks the fourth donation in recent years, with previous donations of wildland fire engines donated to Standish-Litchfield, Milford.