Plane conversation leads to a big boost for small fire department
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Two guys walk onto an
airplane and sit next to each other. One guy says to the other “So, what
line of business are you in?”
When Cascade Locks Fire Chief Jeff Pricher took his
seat aboard a flight from Chicago to Portland earlier this spring, he
asked that very question. He had no way of knowing his random seat
assignment would yield a much-needed donation.
Cascade Locks is small and its fire department budget
fits its size. So there isn’t a lot of money for extras such as portable
wildland firefighting pumps. But as the town is entirely surrounded by
national forest, having the equipment would be beneficial.
Wildland firefighting pumps are portable pumps that can
be used in remote areas to pump water from a tank or stream, according to
Pricher.
He told his fellow passenger how he had put in for an
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife grant to get the pumps. He asked
his seatmate, “So what do you do?”
Through random chance, his seatmate turned out to be a
sales manager — and not just any sales manager, but one who works for
Wildfire, a Portland-based company in Portland that sells wildland
firefighting equipment around the globe.
Once the two men found out they both worked in the
firefighting arena, their talk flamed hot about fires and equipment.
Pricher told Jack Makin how much he admired the company’s product line,
specifically their portable wildland fire pumps; and how the Wildfire line
matches up to equipment used by the U.S. Forest Service.
“And that’s who we interact with if we get a wildland
fire here,” Pricher said.
He explained to Makin how the grant application fell
through when the program didn’t receive funding — so the application hit
the circular file and Pricher gave up the idea that the department would
get portable pumps this year.
The flight ended. Makin and Pricher exchanged business
cards while disembarking. Makin said he might be able to do something to
help out. Pricher didn’t think much of it until the week of May 10.
That is when Dick Yandell, who works for Makin, drove
two new pumps to Cascade Locks to deliver to Pricher.
“We have done a few other items for departments without
a large budget,” Yandell said.
He backed his rig up and unloaded the red-and-black pumps. After an
intense discussion concerning how much psi force the equipment had, he
shook Pricher’s hand and drove away.
