Putting water on the fire – Local volunteer fire departments receive canned water to support wildland firefighting efforts

Anheuser-Busch and Tri-Eagle Sales recently donated more than 2,300 cans of drinking water to the Mount Pleasant Fire Department and its volunteer firefighters.

Lieutenant Jim Roberts, with the Mount Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department, holding one of the cans of water donated to the department by Anheuser-Busch. The brewery, located in Cartersville, Georgia, periodically pauses beer production to switch to canning clean water for communities in need.

The brewer teamed up with the National Volunteer Fire Council in 2019 to create the Emergency Drinking Water for Wildland Firefighters program.

“Our firefighters work very hard and under extreme conditions during high-intensity responses such as wildfires,” said Lieutenant Jim Roberts with Mount Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department. “As a result, they lose large amounts of fluid and proper hydration is critical to ensure their safety and to keep them performing at their best.”

Roberts said the layers of equipment that firefighters wear, coupled with the heat, causes them to lose large volumes of fluid while the firefighters are responding to fires and other emergencies.

Roberts recently joined the National Volunteer Fire Council and soon after applied for its water giveaway through the council’s Wildland Firefighters Program.

“We had asked for the water to come; obviously we’re not just thinking about ourselves; because our response partners are the other departments in the county,” Roberts said. “In our application to get the award we said, ‘Hey, we’re not just going to service our department; we’re going to service five other departments.”

Mount Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department is sharing the water with Wetumpka, Gretna, Sycamore, Greensboro and Robertsville/St. John’s and Greenshade-Dogtown Volunteer Fire Departments.

“Obviously we’re not going to be able to drink all the water ourselves, so we’re supplying them with water because we all respond together,” Roberts said.

The water was split evenly - 16 cases for each department.

“I have no doubt in the heat of fires, we’re going to go through what we got,” Roberts said.

Roberts shared how important the donation is, especially to the volunteer fire departments in the unincorporated areas of the county.

“Mount Pleasant and the other volunteer fire departments across the county get very little funding,” Roberts said. “My department being the lowest funded in the county, it’s very hard for us to use the money that we do get from the county to do other stuff and have money left over to be able to provide equipment and buy things of this nature, so this donation is going to be huge for us because we won’t have to worry about sending someone to get water in the heat of battle. It’s already going to be on the trucks.”

Roberts said he and the other volunteer firefighters or support volunteers usually spend money out of their own pockets to buy water and Gatorade for the station.

Tri-Eagle sales Marketing Manager Kris McCaffrey Marketing Manager said the beverage wholesaler stands alongside its parent company Anheuser-Busch to support local volunteer fire departments.

Water1.jpg: The Mount Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department recently received a donation of 2,300 cans of drinking water from Anheuser-Busch and Tri-Eagle Sales. In return, the volunteers at Mount Pleasant redistributed the canned water to fellow volunteer agencies in Wetumpka, Gretna, Sycamore, Greensboro, Robertsville/St. Johns, and Greenshade-Dogtown.

“We are excited to extend this contribution to the Mount Pleasant Fire Department, providing critical hydration to firefighters during the summer heat,” McCaffrey expressed.

McCaffrey said the water was sourced from Anheuser-Busch’s brewery in Cartersville, Georgia, which periodically pauses beer production to can clean and safe drinking water that is delivered to communities in need.

Roberts said he and the other firefighters are thankful for the donation they received from the National Volunteer Fire Council, Anheuser-Busch and Tri-Eagle Sales.

Erin Hill - erin@gadsdencountytimes.com

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Putting water on the fire – Local volunteer fire departments receive canned water to support wildland firefighting efforts

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DESTINATION: Wild cats take a perch in Tallahassee

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