At 1000 monday the 30th the city officials arrived to view the equipment that we brought from our several department donors. After taking the year to sift through the donations we only bring the equipment that is safe and able to be placed into service immediately. As you can see we brought the mother lode of personal protective gear and breathing apparatus. We found the previous years  equipment in service and well maintained. A noticable change this year is the Three engines we were able to arrange from our generous California departments of Turlock and Lathrop-manteca.

After the ceremony and introductions with press and officials, we re-introduced our liason retired Captain Franco Soliz as our mexico representative. He was officially recognized by his city. Pictured are three engines delivered from the above cities.

Going right to training, our own Hazmat tech, Tyson Depoe from Seattle fire Station 10 proceeded to address a riveted crowd with a well prepared two part training session on hazards and safety issues when dealing with car fires and accidents. Richard Smith the Training Captain from Santee Fire just north of the border visited to see what we were doing. Joel has been in contact with Rich for well  over a year and we were glad to meet and greet him. He acknowledged the good work and vowed to keep in touch to see if we can work together to bring better quality training to the area. Thanks Rich. Once completed we finished up the day and off we went to clean up and siesta. Look for our doings tomorrow.

We entered Mexico at 0930 Sunday morning. Marcos, the new chief of the Tecate Bomberos met us at the border with Retired captain Franco Soliz, the Firefighters Crossing Borders.org representative in Mexico and several other officers. Inspection was a formality of checking the proper papers and off we went to the fire station.

Once there we parked the Trailer in the apparatus bay for the unloading Monday morning when the Mayor and public officials will accept the donated equipment for the Fire Department and the City. The Items we brought are designated for several organizations and shortly after our arrival we were able to meet with two of the organizations and present the supplies. First, the Cruz Rosas (Red Cross) medical service came by and we presented medical supplies, donated by US medical services and a private citizen. The benefit to the citizens will be will be great as the local Doctors use them to save lives. Later, Rescate Condor Association Civil (local Search and rescue), A volunteer organization accepted ropes and assorted hardware which increased their capability to provide their service immeasurably. Until we presented them with 300 ft rescue ropes the longest rope they had was 150 ft. Just another case of discarded usable equipment continuing its service life. After a late lunch with the Chief and a short siesta we proceeded to explore the city. We stopped by the station and ran right into a medical aid. A patient had been in a serious motor cycle accident and as happens all too often he was brought in a private vehicle to the station. The firefighters were out on another alarm and the one firefighter who remained for dispatching was sure happy to see us. We sprung into action and we didn’t miss a beat.  We assisted the lone firefighter and had the patient assessed and packaged by the time the BLS ambulance crew arrived. Of course Scott went with the patient who was delivered to the local medical clinic. Whew! Tomorrow or today if we can’t find internet access is our presentation and Training. Talk to you soon. Enjoy the pictures we uploaded.

Today started early for another long day on the road.  First stop; the local coffee shop.  Our next scheduled stop was Bakersfield to visit Tyson’s family.  We actually received an unexpected donation for the Cruz Roja Mexicana from Tyson’s family (many thanks to them).  Our only vehicle issue was “vapor lock” which killed the engine dead twice (outside temp was 102), but we survived unscathed, and we only lost about 20 minutes.  We arrived in El Cajon for the night at 2030.  L.A. traffic was as expected; very heavy.  We’re off to bed since we have an early morning ahead of us tomorrow, scheduled to cross the border into Tecate at 0800.  Check back soon for further updates about the equipment delivery and our upcoming training.  

Our day began at 0300 Friday morning and by 0500 we were packed and on the road. Awesome Weather and good music made the 16 hour trip safe and successfull. Some small challenges awaited us and of course fuel prices that shocked us every time we filled up.

Around 1300 we were passing Yreka having just left the Oregon mountains when Scott, driving his shift noticed that a tire on the trailer blew out and was able to safely pull us off to the road. Thanks to U-Haul and we were on our way in around an hour.

Around 2000 hrs we Arrived in Sacramento at the home of Steve and Patty Marks who are on Active Military duty. Steve in Iraq and Patty recovering from an injury in Virginia. We have stayed with the Marks’ every year for the past 7 years and although not here to visit, they were not about to change that. We love you Patty and Steve Stay safe and healthy. Almost 800 miles today and a little over 550 tomorrow  will bring us close to the border. We enter Mexico On Sunday morning. Check us out tomorrow for our latest adventure.

 

Hopefully i can upload some pictures to see how we survived the day.

A great thank you to Accelatronics Corp who sells, repairs and installs Cancer treatment machines and linear Accelerators for their committment to donate $500 to our organization. Accelatronics is headquartered in Philladelphia, Penn.

As we continue to plan out our year this money will help greatly to support our operations in Mexico. Firefighters Crossing Borders.org uses a small percentage of the donated funds to maintain this web site and keep our corporation current. All time and personal expenses incured by our Directors and members during the year are personally donated.

Our members up here in Washington are working hard to finalize plans for our mission leaving April 28. We will be bloging our way to Mexico and beond so everyone can hear how it’s going. Our friends in Tecate are ready for us and we are excited and eager to see them again.

We have inventoried our donations and will be distributing much of it to Tecate and Ensenada. We have arranged to pick up more donations in California on our return so we won’t be coming back empty. Look for us and follow our journey.

To date we have received the following donations: FF/Pm Scott Booth $300, Gig Harbor Firefighters Association $300,and Iaff Local 3390 Gig Harbor Professional Firefighters $400. These funds will be used during our upcoming mission to the Northern Baja.

Firefighters Crossing Borders.org is a 501c3 charitable organization making donations tax deductible.