Apparatus manufacturer Rosenbauer recently held a 10th anniversary celebration. One of the company's U.S. partners is Kevin Kirvida, who is president of General Safety Equipment in Wyoming, Minn. He was on a mission — he wanted everyone know about three fellow Minnesotans. He told their story to those of us who shared his table at a small dinner in Sioux Falls, S.D. The following evening at the company's formal celebration, he repeated the story for all the dealers, media and others in attendance.
What makes these men so noteworthy is their charitable efforts. Last year, Ron Gruening partnered with Greg Johnson and Mark Allen to form International Fire Relief Mission. Their mission was to deliver serviceable but unwanted fire apparatus and equipment, such as turnout gear and SCBA, to Moldova. Moldova is a former Eastern Bloc country of about 13,000 square miles wedged between Romania and the Ukraine. The U.S. government estimates Moldova's population at just over 4 million. Our government also says that Moldova remains one of the poorest countries in Europe — about 30% of the population lives in poverty.
At the Rosenbauer event, IFRM hung a rubber bunker jacket, a thin metal helmet with no liner and bunker pants cut at the knees. Any protective properties these items may have had at one point were long since gone.
Gruening, IFRM's president and a retired EMT, says this is the gear used by the Moldova fire department trying to protect Chisinau, a city of roughly 1 million residents. In 2007, IFRM collected some used equipment, made a trip to Moldova, presented the gear and provided some training. He says they visited one fire station where tankers were filled by a line of firefighters originating at an old well and passing water-laden buckets toward the trucks. Gruening and his crew connected a pump to the well.
The problem, as Gruening explains, is that the fire service was neglected during the communist era and economic conditions have kept it from recovering since the iron curtain fell in 1991.
Gruening and Kirvida met over lunch to discuss how to do more for firefighters in that fledgling country. Kirvida hooked IFRM up with the Minnesota Fire Chiefs Association, which began soliciting and collecting donations. Kirvida also opened up his facility's warehouse to store these used apparatus.
Since then, IFRM has made return trips to Eastern Europe, enough in fact, to have set in place checks to make sure the equipment gets to and stays with the fire service. This is important because equipment sent from Seattle and Miami went missing, Gruening says.
Gruening says interest in this program is growing on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, more and more departments are looking to dispose of apparatus with little to no resale value and gear that no longer meets safety requirements. But SCBA that is no longer NFPA-compliant is decades ahead of anything currently used in Moldova. Having seen the equipment coming into Moldova, Ukraine and Romania are seeking assistance — as are some South American and Asia countries.
In addition to fire department donations, IFRM is getting a shot in the arm from corporate sponsors. Besides Rosenbauer (Frontier Emergency Products and General Safety Equipment), Lion Apparel, Gear Grid, Fire Research Corp., Stryker and MSA have signed on as sponsors. Even the State Department has come on board by shipping containers of these goods for IFRM.
The group currently has about three full containers ready to ship, and are planning their next delivery to Moldova late this summer.
There are certainly a number of groups doing similar work, but IFRM is a small operation that is making a big difference in the global fire community. Those interested in more information on IFRM can visit their Web site at ifrm2007.googlepages.com or e-mail Gruening at rgruening@gmail.com.
