By Roman Gokhman
Contra Costa Times
RICHMOND, Calif. — In Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, a 24-member volunteer fire department still uses a 1930 fire engine fondly referred to as “The Potbellied” to respond to emergencies in the city of 1.6 million.
The Richmond Fire Department wants to help the city in the second-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere by donating a 26,950-pound gift a fire engine retired from service several years ago. But first it needs to come up with $6,000 to ship it.
“The help is desperately needed (in Nicaragua),” said Yader Bermudez, Richmond’s public works director. Bermudez, who oversees the Fire Department’s equipment, is a native Nicaraguan.
The donation will be made through a nonprofit organization started by Oakland firefighters in 2000, called Random Acts of Kindness. It began with good deeds in the Bay Area and has expanded to running children’s medical clinics in two Nicaraguan cities in 2007.
Firefighters from Richmond, San Mateo, Emeryville and Redwood City got involved. Firefighters fluent in Spanish were recruited to translate for doctors and nurses at the clinics.
While working as a translator at the clinics in 2008, Richmond fire Captain Liz de Dios saw how little equipment and training Nicaraguan firefighters had.
Only 20 percent of Nicaragua is covered by fire protection districts, Managua assistant fire chief Atilio Ibarra said. The Managua volunteer department responds to more than 4,000 call annually, he said.
When de Dios saw that a department in Nicaragua had no extrication equipment, used to cut crash victims out of auto wrecks, she remembered that her department was about to get new equipment.
De Dios proposed that Richmond give up its soon-to-be retired equipment. City leaders agreed and the equipment was handed over during a June 2008 training symposium where firefighters from the Bay Area agencies trained counterparts from Central America.
Soon after, the Richmond Fire Department was about to auction off a retired 1973 open-cab engine, which wasn’t expected to bring back much money.
De Dios thought it would be better instead to donate the engine donated to the Managua fire department.
“These guys are driving engines from the second World War,” she said. “That’s ridiculous.”
She approached Bermudez, he took it up with the Richmond City Council, and the council agreed.
The Managua department, founded in 1936, has two stations that are stocked with one engine and one ladder truck, both in great condition, donated from a U.S. department. But everything else is old and breaking down, especially “La Panzona” (The Potbellied), Ibarra said.
Equally rundown are the department’s sole water tanker and fire hoses, and the city’s hydrants.
“Most of the units are very old but thanks to the creativity of our mechanics, most of them still work,” Ibarra said.
The Richmond department has begun fundraising to collect the $6,000 shipping fee, de Dios said, but has raised only $800 in four months.
Bermudez has applied for clearance through a U.S. Department of Defense transport program that is free but difficult to qualify for.
De Dios said the department is accepting donations, and if it qualifies for the government service, the money raised will go toward sending more equipment to Nicaragua.
“The red tape has been taken care of four months ago,” de Dios said. “We just need some money (to send the engine).
How to donate
Make checks payable to “Random Acts International (Nica Engine),” and mail to Captain Liz de Dios, c/o Richmond Fire Department, 440 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond, CA 94804.
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