The Town of Olds, along with Mountain View County and in conjunction with Rotary clubs in Olds and Lethbridge, is sending a fire truck to a Mexican community.
The truck, a 1993 model, was declared surplus a couple of years ago.
On April 5, it was officially handed over to members of the Rotary Club of Lethbridge Sunrise, which is taking a caravan of surplus emergency vehicles from across southern Alberta to Mexico this fall. Meanwhile, the fire truck will remain in secured storage, Lethbridge Rotarian Jim Campbell said.
The Olds fire truck is going to the Mexican community of Rincon de Guayabitos in the state of Nayarit, Mexico.
"Steve Turner and Jim Smith, our Rotary international service directors, initiated the idea four years ago when Steve and I attended a Rotary District Conference in Lethbridge," said Mary Turner, a member of the Rotary Club of Olds and a member of the board of governors for Rotary district 5360.
Campbell and Smith said it will be the first fire truck that community has ever had. Until now, their "fire truck" has been a water tanker outfitted with a pump.
In addition to the Olds fire truck, the caravan will also include another fire truck from Airdrie as well as three ambulances and a handi-bus.
"We found out that the Lethbridge club -- part of our district -- is doing it, so we said, 'why would we reinvent the wheel?' They know what they're doing, so they're going to facilitate the transfer," Smith said.
"I think they said it takes about 4,000 volunteer hours per unit to kind of sort all these things through, facilitate all the work, and so on."
Fire Chief Justin Andrew likes the project.
"It's a great opportunity for our communities -- Mountain View County and the Town of Olds -- to share their good fortune with a community in Mexico that doesn't have the same access to resources that we would have," he told the Albertan.
"When we dispose of an apparatus at the end of its life, it can go to all sorts of different service, whether somebody buys it personally to use on a farm or for those kind of applications. But when you have such a specialized piece of equipment, it is nice to see it continue to be used for what it was intended for," Andrew added.
"Even though it falls outside of the guidelines and regulations for service in Canada, that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a purpose still. So it's excellent that it can go and be used and be valued for a long time yet to come."
Andrew said the fire truck was replaced a couple of years ago "but we've held onto it for this opportunity."
"This was always the plan, so that's why we would keep it. Otherwise, we'd typically dispose of something that's been replaced immediately, whether it goes to public auction or to reserve surplus or whatever within the organization," Andrew said.
"The big piece that's important in this story is that this venture was made possible through the elected officials from the Town of Olds and Mountain View County. Because these apparatuses are jointly owned, the elected representatives had to vote to donate this truck in kind to the Rotary Club to make it happen.
"So that's a huge piece of this, because a lot of municipalities have dispersal policies where that would not be possible, and they would actually have to pay for it. So I say we're very fortunate and happy that the respective councils made this happen, through their generosity," he added.
Coun. Wade Bearchell represented the Town of Olds during the event.
He noted town council made the decision to donate the truck a few years ago.
"It's fantastic to see it actually happen," Bearchell said. "It wasn't a real easy decision because we were making a decision to donate a piece of equipment that we could have salvaged.
"Now, after seeing the presentation from the Rotary people who run this project, the philosophy of this project, and the great need for this type of equipment in Mexico, we made the right decision."
Councillors Al Kemmere and Duncan Milne represented Mountain View County.
"It's a truck that is -- for all intents and purposes -- obsolete for use in Alberta. But it is definitely not obsolete for a community down in Mexico that can make great use out of this, because what it's replacing is just night and day difference," Kemmere said.
"So rather than have this piece of equipment sold by public auction and parted out into minute little pieces, or whatever the use would be, it can be put to a lot better human use as it is once it gets down there.
"It's an item that councils talk about, it's an item that councils struggle with, but I think in my personal opinion, I think ultimately this has been a great move. It'll help a community outside of where we're at and at the same time not really be a huge financial load on this community -- on our community anyways."
Campbell, a project advisor for the Rotary Club of Lethbridge Sunrise, noted he worked with the original team that began moving surplus equipment down to Mexico in 2011.
He said it will be put to good use.
"There are a lot of grass fires and agricultural fires in Mexico and so having an official fire truck with all the proper equipment and everything, which this has, really is a bonus to those communities and it'll save a considerable number of lives," he said.
Campbell said the caravan will leave for Mexico on Oct. 4. He said that's because it will take months to get the paperwork done. He said there's no point in trying to do that paperwork ahead of time.
"Usually what happens if you get too far away, some of the documentation isn't as accurate as it is if it is a little more immediate and people have to process it," he said.
"And a lot of the people -- the bureaucrats in Mexico -- don't want to start processing the stuff until they have to. Until they need to, because they're busy doing other commercial imports -- that sort of thing -- into Mexico."
Campbell was asked jokingly if his entourage will have trouble getting past the "big beautiful wall" U.S. President Trump is pushing for.
They won't have a problem, Campbell said, because the Mexicans are happy to see the caravan come through.
"They're so welcoming in Mexico. Even the military and federal police know about our project and recognize it. If they stop us on the route, they just basically want to know how things are going," Campbell said.
If anything, he said jokingly, the U.S. National Guard, which has been called down to patrol the border, might be more of a problem.
"They would probably be a little more concerned," he said jokingly, "because it's not going to the U.S. It's going to Mexico for free."
Campbell stressed that although there have been recent news reports about drug- and gang-related violence in Mexico, his caravans have never encountered any such problems.
"One of the things that's really been exciting about going into Mexico over all these years is everybody in the project feels incredibly safe in Mexico," Campbell said. "We've never had any sense of threat or anything untoward with our convoy anywhere we've gone in Mexico. It's been incredibly safe and secure."
