Area Fire Companies Help Williamstown Christen New Tanker
Most of the tankers used hoses to contribute to the pool that would be used to fill Williamstown's new tanker. Hancock's tanker had a more direct method.
On Saturday morning, they gathered because they wanted to.
The Fire Department, which on Friday took delivery on the company's first tanker truck, invited its partners to come to the Spruces Park and "Share The Water."
One by one, tankers from Adams, Clarksburg, Hancock, Lanesborough, New Ashford, North Adams and Vermont's Pownal, Pownal Vally and Stamford took turns pulling alongside the brand-new Williamstown apparatus and emptying a small portion of their water into a pool that then would be used to fill the new truck.
The symbolic commingling of the water from various communities is a reminder of how first-responders from various towns pool their resources in time of need — whether it is a brush fire on a mountainside that burns for several days or a house fire in a rural locale where hydrants are unavailable and tankers are critical.
"For as long as I go back — and Chief [Ed] McGowan standing here can confirm — when we request mutual aid and tankers, they always come for us," Williamstown Fire Chief Craig Pedercini said. "We never get turned down by people. If they've got one or two people in town, they will cut them loose so we can get some water.
"And, you know, now that we have this one, not only will it help us, but I'm hoping we can return the favor, and I'm sure we will."
McGowan, a retired chief who is in his final days serving the district as a member of the Prudential Committee that runs the district, was one of several members of the Williamstown Fire Department family on hand to watch the proceedings.
"I looked at it this morning, when I came down early, and that is almost a perfect truck," McGowan said. "We can do an awful lot with that."
Fire district voters approved a $380,000 expenditure from the district's stabilization fund to purchase the 2,600-gallon tanker at last spring's annual district meeting. The district, a separate taxing authority apart from town government, will hold its 2021 annual meeting on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Williamstown Elementary School. From 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, the district will hold its annual election, in which Lyndsay Neathawk is the only candidate on the ballot to replace McGowan on the five-member Prudential Committee.
Pedercini said in addition to allowing his department to provide more mutual aid to the departments that always have done the same for Williamstown, the tanker will help better protect homes in the 89 percent of town not covered by water lines.
"It's going to be a big help for us," he said. "We have so many people in our rural areas, where we don't have water supplies, we don't have hydrants. Our hydrants kind of end at Bill Hill Road (on Route 7) or they end at Gale Road on Green River. We can only go so far into White Oak and then they end there. Northwest Hill Road, down along the lower sections of the loop there, that's where you have hydrants, but everything up above it, no hydrants.
"So this truck is going to come in really handy to send it out as a second piece right behind an engine. It's going to go to these areas, and it's going to give us an extra 2,600 gallons of water."
Pedercini said the plan is for all of the personnel trained to drive the department's current apparatuses to be trained to drive the tanker, which can be a little trickier to operate given its payload. Training began as soon as the truck arrived on Friday evening from the Ohio-based manufacturer and continued on Saturday morning before the Share The Water event.
As firefighters from different departments swapped stories, enjoyed refreshments and looked over the latest addition to Williamstown's fleet, Pedercini agreed that this weekend's gathering was a lot more enjoyable than the last time they all got together.
"It's a brand-new tanker, it's our first tanker ever, so to kind of have this little christening type thing is awesome," he said. "It's almost as exciting or actually maybe more exciting, I think, than having all these departments show up and help you with the forest fire that we had. It's a lot of the same departments and then some, maybe. So it's great."
