November 12, 2011

A Pre-Winter Chore at the Fire Department

Someone needs to tuck that nozzle away on the hose reel.


Colder weather is coming, so today some of the volunteer firefighters met to empty our two above-ground 3,000-gallon storage tanks, located about a mile and a half from my house. We had filled them in the spring from the creek—before it went dry.

They give us a reliable summer water source in this area, just in case we cannot draft from the creek, and they have been used in the past by engines from other departments that do not carry floating pumps.

The creek is running again, but rather than just drain the tanks into it, we pumped them into our old water tender (rear bumper pictured) and a larger water truck borrowed from the county road-and-bridge department. We dumped all the water into a new semi-underground tank at the fire house, then added more from the creek.

I made several trips up and down the highway in between the two sites, getting in some practice driving that tender with its 1970s GMC split rear axle. A west wind blew ferociously the whole time—that means snow is falling in the higher mountains.

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