VIDEO: Three Sonoma County fire stations are now equipped with a new emergency response tool: mobile generators powered by the sun.
On Thursday, firefighters got a hands-on lesson on how they work.
"What we're building here is a solar-powered generator," said Jim Kracke with the Sonoma Valley Fire Department "This is going to be in one of our stations. The station it is going to does not have a backup generator. So now it will."
It could prove to be a life-saving tool in the field, but building it won't be easy.
"It's a learning experience for a lot of us," Kracke said. "There are schematics, instructions. We have instructors that are overseeing the process." "These are higher voltage systems," explained Nate Heegard with the Footprint Project, an organization that helps communities build and maintain solar generators for power outages and disaster response.