Luther Volunteer Fire Rescue

It is a typical August day in central Oklahoma, bright and sunny, temperature hovering at the century mark, winds out of the south at 10-15 mph, when dispatch sounds the tone. It is a wildland fire approaching a structure. Twenty-five residents of the town leave their families and jobs without a second thought. The volunteers of this department commit to protecting their community. In route to the scene, each firefighter wonders what they will encounter, but the veterans have an additional worry: “Will we have enough water at the scene and be able to pump it?” No firefighter should ever have to suffer the powerlessness of only watching as a wall of flame races toward property and threatens lives, yet this is a circumstance experienced by most of the firefighters of Luther Volunteer Fire Department.
The Luther Volunteer Fire Department is located in central Oklahoma, approximately 30 miles east of Oklahoma City. With a growing population of 1112 people, Luther currently retains 25 volunteer firefighters. Due to an extremely limited budget, many volunteers pay for their own training, with the rest accepting grants and free training offered by neighboring departments. The more experienced members of the department work hard to teach the new volunteers the importance of water conservation. The Luther fire district is the second largest in the state, covering a total of 50 square miles, with one square miles of incorporated area with fire hydrants. The remaining 49 square miles is rural farmland, prairie grasslands and wooded areas. The primary fires are wildland fires, with many occurring in open fields, miles from any access to water. The LVFD uses five brush trucks with pony motors that hold 200 gallons, and a 1976 Pierce 500 GPM Waterous engine that was constructed from two broken trucks the town purchased in the mid 1990‘s. The engine is unable to hold water due to a leak, and the pump lost the ability to draft. The tanker is a 1962 Dodge Diesel fuel delivery tanker used on Tinker Air Force Base, on loan from the Forestry service since the mid 1990’s. The firefighters reconfigured the truck into water tender, capable of holding 5000 gallons, but it holds less than half that amount due to a leak and transmission problems. The tanker travels at a top speed of 25 mph uphill, causing it to be last on the scene and inefficient for retrieving additional water. LVFD is able to count on sister departments for additional trucks and help, but this leaves their districts unprotected and strains their resources.
A new, working pumper tanker would provide the residents of Luther greater confidence in the department’s ability to protect both life and property. A new Tradition ES Pumper would allow the LVFD to replace both the aging tanker and engine, enabling the veterans to know that the future volunteer firefighters will never have to pray because they ran out of water or a pump gave out as a fire raged.