Fire crew in need of new equipment

Anyone who has ever been assisted by the Moorcroft Volunteer Fire Department knows they can be sure that the firefighters who show up are good at what they do. When one takes into account the fact that they are not paid for putting their lives on the line for their neighbors and strangers alike, their efforts are all the more remarkable.

Most never have reason to consider that the many integral tools used by the men and women who walk into the flames do, in fact, have dates of expiration. This includes hoses, personal protection gear and air tanks to name a few and some of those dates are up for Moorcroft.

Moorcroft's fire department has 40 air tanks on hand that were bought in 2003, 20 set in attending harness for immediate use and 20 in reserve. These tanks, which cost around $2500 apiece, have come to the end of their 15-year life and are now expired.

Firefighter Rusty Williamson explains the consequences of working with expired tanks.

"This is the air we breathe in a structure fire. The risk of using the tank [after the manufacture's expiration date] is that the bottle could have a failure," he says.

The tanks are supposed to be removed from service; however, "If we take them all out of service, we don't have any breathing air for our firemen."

The department had received a federal grant when they bought the existing tanks and harnesses new and are applying again for said funding; the firemen are also seeking private funding from willing donators..

They are considering “scaling down” from 40 to 20 tanks to make the application more palatable, according to Williamson, though this will potentially create a more dangerous situation.

“Most of the time, we don’t have more than ten guys in a working fire at one time, but it does limit our ability if we have a hazardous materials case or whatever. You’ll have a warm zone and a hot zone; there are multiple zones there where they have to be wearing air packs,” he says.

“We’d only be able to send in three or four guys because we’d have to save enough guys to rescue them if something happened.”

The apparatus or “pack” used to carry the tanks does not expire, but, according to firefighter Dan Grace, “There have been a tremendous number of changes in technology since these came out 16 years ago and it’s so much safer to have the new stuff.”

The department has an average of 24 firefighters currently on the roster and Williamson expounded that the risk of equipment failure puts significant liability on both the officer who tells the firefighters to use the expired tanks and the town government under which his department operates.