Texas City Makes Fire Truck Available to Guatemalan Municipality
TYLER, Texas (AP) — The Tyler Fire Department has sent a 17-year-old fire truck to a village in Guatemala.
The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports (http://bit.ly/13LCuwG ) that Tyler officials arranged through the nonprofit group Ignited to donate the truck to the municipality of San Jose Pinula.
The truck was being used as a backup in Tyler because it has a leaky water tank and a bent frame. But when Hope Ignited's executive director went on a medical outreach trip to Guatemala, he saw a new fire station without a fire truck because local officials couldn't afford one. Tyler was eventually identified as having a truck available.
City officials from San Jose Pinula flew to the United States to pick up the truck from Tyler, then drive it about 1,500 miles back to Guatemala.