It adds an additional layer of information to firefighters' field of vision, letting them spot a person trapped inside a house, or a potential danger that they wouldn't be able to see without the thermal camera. Many firefighting forces use a thermal camera already when fighting fires, but current models are bulky and handheld. This new version is hands-free. “At first it’s hard to know what you’re seeing, if it’s the real thing or not, but you get used to it surprisingly fast and can easily handle the two overlapping views," Jean-Marc Pittet, who trains firefighters in Switzerland, and who helped the researchers test their prototype, said in a press release.

“If there’s a fire today, I’m first out,” said the California native, who’s stationed in Ellensburg.

That call never came Wednesday, but Garcia and the other members of the helicopter-based quick-response team got some experience anyway. They were gathered at Cle Elum Municipal Airport, responding to a mock fire as news media watched.

They used a windswept meadow as base, loading baskets for cargo drops and water drops while getting valuable time with real equipment and real helicopters.

“Today is a great opportunity for our program to get some real hands-on training with the helicopters, with all the fuel trucks and with all the radios, so that we are as proficient as we can be when it comes to actually doing our task when the fires start to go off later this summer,” said helitack crew member Aaron Siebol of Ellensburg.

Representatives from the First Government Lease Company in Northfield, Illinois, took the fire trucks, claiming loans taken out on them had not been paid back, said Warfield Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jay D. Hinkle.

"It impacted me pretty bad," Hinkle said. "I got mad at first and then it hurt me because the community is who suffers in this."

Department leaders and county officials are trying to figure out who applied for loans on the trucks and why, since the vehicles were already paid off.

Kentucky State Police are investigating. In the meantime, Warfield firefighters are trying to figure out how to get the trucks back.

"Right now we're going to try to seek some legal aid and see what we can do," Hinkle said.

The Warfield Volunteer Fire Department is now down to two fire engines and a rescue truck, Hinkle said.

But Hinkle said the department is still able to provide adequate fire coverage to people in the Warfield area because they are receiving help from departments in nearby Inez and Kermit, W.Va.

The celebration on Saturday will be from 11 a.m., when DJ music will start, to 6 p.m. at the firehouse at 6 E. Ogden St. At 1 p.m., the fire equipment parade will begin. The parade will be a history lesson of fire equipment as it developed and improved in the past century. The rain date is Sunday.

Rangers firefighter Michael Zangari is an event organizer and chairman of the planning committee.

“The parade will be lined up by the year of the fire apparatus with the Model T leading the way,” Zangari said. “The Model T is running and it’s been touched up, so it will be ready.”

As the trucks pass the Rangers firehouse, each one will be announced by Ashland Fire Chief Philip Groody. There will be monetary prizes.

About the truck, Zangari said, “It’s called a chemical truck and was the precursor to foam. There are two tanks on the back. The Model T was in service from 1916 to 1927. In 1927, the company purchased a Dodge fire engine. The chemical they used was very similar to a dry chemical fire extinguisher.”

“The Model T replaced our first fire truck, which was a horse-drawn hose cart bought from the West End Fire Station 7 in Pottsville,” he said. “When the fire company had the hose cart, the company opted to purchase the Model T, which was state of the art.”

The truck was housed at the fire company until 2000, when it became part of the Schuylkill County Historical Fire Society museum in Shenandoah. Just as with many of the historical trucks at the museum, the Model T remains the property of the fire company.

“It is the second oldest motorized fire company-owned truck on the east coast,” Zangari said. “And it is the oldest company-owned truck in Schuylkill County.”

The truck was last driven in the second annual Girardville St. Patrick’s Day parade in 2004. It has been refurbished twice, the last time in the 1970s.

After receiving emergency medical treatment from the firefighters at the Getty Avenue station, the driver was transported to nearby St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center. No firefighters were injured.

At about 2:45 p.m. firefighters had positioned a fire truck on Getty Avenue, an industrial area, to back it into the rear of the firehouse to do training exercises, Henderson said. Firefighters had stopped traffic and were about to back in when all of a sudden the car hit the back of the truck, sending the car flying in a diagonal direction into the brick firehouse, he said. The car hit the side of the entrance to one of the building’s bays, taking a chunk out of the brick there.  

The car, which sustained substantial damage to its front end, was towed away.