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The Chronicle, Willimantic, Conn.
(TNS)

SCOTLAND — The Scotland Volunteer Fire Department will open its doors to the public this Saturday.

An Open House will be held at the Scotland Public Safety Complex from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Visitors will have the chance to meet Smokey the Bear while learning about fire safety, and take tours of the fire station, which was recently upgraded through grants from Lowe’s Hometowns, an initiative from the home improvement retailer.

Earlier this year, Scotland’s department received $30,000 for the construction of bunkrooms and an office and the renovation of the kitchen. Another $2,500 in grant funding came from the local Lisbon branch of the store through its Heroes program, which contributed miscellaneous items to bring the project toward completion. Sherwin-Williams, the paint manufacturing company, donated paint, which volunteers from Lisbon Lowes applied to the interior of the station in August as part of its community service outreach program.

“The Lowes renovation has been completed,” Scotland Deputy Chief Michael Gurnack said. “They came out great.”

“We are putting on some finishing touches,” Chief Jason Beaumont added.

The department was founded din 1947 and the current station was built in 1999.

Scotland’s first responders received more funding through a community grant from utility company Eversource. The department used the funds to purchase carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguishers and reflective address numbers. All of these will be distributed to Scotland residnts at the event.

“We will be handing them out to our town residents, one per household, while supplies last,” Gurnack said.

The reflective address numbers can be added to posts at the end of a driveway or on a mailbox post to help guide emergency responders to the right place in the event of a crisis.

Also at the event will be representatives from the Connecticut State Police K9 Unit, and from LifeStar, the critical-care helicopter service based at Hartford HealthCare’s Backus Hospital in Norwich. The helicopter will land at the station at approximately 2 p.m., if possible.

There will also be a drone demonstration, an inflatable bounce house for children and raffles, with a chance to win a DuroMax Power Equipment generator from Accurate Power LLC. Refreshments will be available.

The public safety complex is located at 47 Brook Road.

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Scotland receives new radios thanks to AFG grant

We are pleased to announce that we were recently notified that our request for an Assistance for Firefighters Grant (AFG) has been accepted, the department said in a Facebook post. This grant was regional effort by the following fire departments:

• Atwood Hose Fire Company

• Baltic Fire Department

• Canterbury Fire Department

• Chaplin Fire Department

• Hampton Fire Department

• Scotland Fire Department

The funding awarded in this grant will be used to purchase much-needed dual-band portable radios for each department. The new radios will replace equipment that is nearly 20-years old. The technology in the new radios will allow for better communication within each department and interoperability between mutual aid agencies throughout our region.

We would like to thank Representative Joseph Courtney and Senators Blumenthal and Murphy for their su

By Alan M. Petrillo

The Belton, Missouri Fire Department was looking to purchase a 2,000-gallon tanker with a relatively small footprint because it didn’t want an oversized vehicle. After researching several tanker makers, Belton chose to go with Danko Emergency Equipment to build a pumper-tanker with 50% more water than they were first seeking, yet with a manageable overall length and height.

The fire department protects the city of 20,000 people, and also contracts to protect an adjoining rural area bringing its total protection area to 33 square miles. John Sapp, Belton’s fire chief, says the district is a mix of single family and multi-family residences, commercial structures, and some light industrial businesses. “The department has 54 employees, 48 of whom are paid full-time firefighters,” Sapp points out. “We have two stations that house our new pumper-tanker, a Precision pumper, a Pierce 107-foot Ascendant aerial ladder, two brush trucks, three ambulances, a battalion chief, and a reserve pumper.”

Sapp notes that Belton Fire had not dealt with Danko before, but after they checked out a demo pumper-tanker Danko had built, decided to sit down and talk with them about building a rig for Belton. “At first we started talking about a pumper-tanker with a 2,000-gallon water tank,” Sapp says, “but the Danko people showed us how we could get a 1,000-gallon per minute (gpm) pump and a 3,000-gallon tank on a tandem rear axle vehicle that would be only slightly longer than a 2,000-gallon model.”

Steve Borts, Danko sales representative who sold the pumper-tanker to Belton, says the rig is built on a Freightliner M2 106 chassis and two-person cab, with a 220-inch aluminum body, a 194 inch wheelbase, a 29 foot 5 inch overall length, and a 9 foot 8 inch overall height. He adds that the pumper-tanker is powered by a 360-horsepower (hp) Cummins engine, and an Allison 3000 EVS automatic transmission.

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