PHOTO: The Pima Volunteer Fire Department has a new tool in its toolbox thanks to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The BLM recently gave the department a pre-owned Type 6 fire engine with $12,000 worth of tools and an an emergency radio.
Lathe Evans, an assistant fire managing officer with the BLM, said that new the engine carried a $300,000 price tag.
A few years back, when an engine reached so many hours of service, the federal government was required to sell them at auction, Evans said. Under the Trump administration and now the Biden administration, the policy is to transfer engines to rural departments that need such equipment and that agree to assist in fighting fires on state and private property. When such fires break out on state land, the departments are reimbursed, Evans said.
Type 6 engines carry 300 gallons of water and are more mobile than other engines when it comes to the desert and mountains, Evans said.