VIDEO: The South Texas city of McAllen is offering to train Mexican firefighters in what the mayor calls the first such binational collaboration among fire departments. “This is the first in the country where you have a Mexican fire department coming and training in the United States. So we’re really proud of what we’re doing,” McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos said Monday afternoon.
Villalobos and Carlos Víctor Peña Ortiz, the mayor of the northern Mexican border town of Reynosa, signed a memorandum of understanding at McAllen City Hall, which will allow Reynosa firefighters to train in a new 10,000-square-foot fire training facility that the City of McAllen is building. “It is truly a historic moment what we’re doing today. It is something that has not been done in all the United States,” Villalobos said.