Photo by Paul Robeson, Reporter
AIR CHECK: Fire Captain Calvin Ciapponi, left, volunteer firefighter Robert Hawley in breathing apparatus and administrative assistant and volunteer firefighter Rodney Chadbon check out the new SCBA units at the Cottonwood Fire Protection District.
Thanks to a $165,000 FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) grant written by Cottonwood Fire Protection District Capt. Jim Flaherty, the district will receive a Bauer air containment fill station.
The station will have an enclosed air fill control panel, four storage cylinders and storage for up to twelve SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) cylinders.
The district has already received 20 new SCBA units from the same grant.
The fill station, which is a mobile trailer system, will arrive in late June.
The new SCBA units are lighter than the current breathing apparatus units and they can be refilled and “transfilled” from the mobile compressor in less than a minute.
Transfilling is done between two cylinders, while the firefighter is wearing the units, something that can not be done with the present cylinders.
“With these new lighter units we are able to assist any other firefighter in trouble without having to exit and reenter a fire zone,” said volunteer firefighter Robert Hawley.
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