Ben Garbacz/Daily Mining Gazette Over $1 million in firefighting equipment was donated to U.P. fire departments from the Our Firehouse to Yours downstate nonprofit group. Even after 17 fire departments came to the Twin Lakes Fire Hall and claimed needed equipment by Friday afternoon, there was still plenty of gear for fire departments to access on Saturday.

TWIN LAKES — Several area fire departments received help from downstate fire departments as part of the Our Firehouse to Yours nonprofit organization. More than $1 million worth of used firefighting equipment and supplies were made available at the Twin Lakes Fire Hall Friday and Saturday for local departments to come by and select what their departments needed.

Our Firehouse to Yours cofounder Denny Hughes, director of emergency services for Belfor Property Restoration, said the nonprofit was founded around 10 years ago and collects used fire equipment from areas such as Detroit, Lansing and Grand Rapids and, instead of letting it become discarded donates the equipment to smaller, rural depaertments. The group is made up of active and retired firefighters, and such, Hughes said they understand the need for working equipment.

“We know exactly the equipment that is needed up here,” Hughes said. “We kind of cherry pick what was really nice. If it needs service, if it needs to be brought up to date, if it’s dirty, we don’t bring it. We bring them some of the best stuff that we can find.”

Twin Lakes Fire Department Chief John Reynolds said the equipment dispersion makes a huge difference for each fire department that visited by. “Just for example, we had two departments that came today that do not have thermal imaging cameras, and we were able to supply them each with two,” Reynolds said. “That is a huge thing. I mean, I can’t believe they didn’t have them and even we, at one time, did not have them.”

Reynolds further explained the significance of the equipment donations given the cost and insurance. He said everything now in fire service has a lifespan which relates to insurance. “We have a $100,000 policy on every fireman. So if you were in a fire and you were in turnout gear that was expired, there’s no $100,000 check. The NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) put a lifespan on everything, so for a department of our size, we have 18 members, it’s $100,000 to put them in new turnout gear when they expire,” he said. “So that’s four years of our millage that we take in, so it would take us four years to replace it. So this buys us a bunch of time.”

Reynolds gave the example of Detroit having a reoccurring budget which allows for turnout gear to be replaced every two years, but the gear will still have eight years left of shelf life when it is no longer used by the downstate department. He said for each individual fireman in the Copper Country it costs about $3,000 to $5,000 to fit them in, or provide a set of boots, coat, gear and a helmet.

Other than coats and helmets, other equipment available to the local departments included hoses, nozzles, portable pumps, Jaws of Life, airbags for car lifting, exhaust fans and more. Reynolds said Twin Lakes Fired Department took advantage of obtaining safety equipment for traffic control and vehicle lights. While the equipment for firefighting is important, other equipment which is used to secure an area can also be costly. There was even some equipment which is technically out of date in terms of technology that are still utilized by U.P. firemen.

“A lot of people are set in their ways. Some people love to still use pagers. There were boxes and boxes of pagers with the programming kits and those people were so happy because of stuff you can’t buy anymore. It’s outdated and they love them. A lot of them leave them at home, set the pager and it makes it loud throughout their whole house,” Reynolds said. “So for people who don’t like change, to find that stuff that’s outdated for a different department that’s more modern and using cell phones and stuff, people like that. And it works in different areas where there’s no cell coverage.”

Reynolds emphasized the shortage of equipment is felt throughout the U.P., and pointed out to Houghton Fire Department as an example of still needing to take advantage of the available equipment. Though Houghton is one of the larger department in the U.P., despite its larger budget, it still could not meet all the needs. This is why it is important to take advantage of every opportunity to support your local fire department according to Reynolds.

“We have pancake breakfasts. We have many different raffle ticket events and stuff like that. Buy some tickets to win firewood. To support them (fire departments) would be the best thing you can do. That is not technically our mad money, but it’s stuff we can’t budget, because we’re always constantly applying for grants,” he said.

When it comes to the donations, Hughes said every fire department has shown appreciation for the work Our Firehouse to Yours accomplishes.

“I’ve had multiple firefighters or fire chiefs tell me in the years that we’ve been here that we have no idea how we’ve changed lives in the fire service, and we probably saved lives by providing them with equipment they didn’t have like Jaws of Life and airbags and different things like that,” Hughes explained. “And after hearing that the first time, we realized we probably were pretty modest about it. We just thought it was a nice thing to do. We want to just stay with the Brotherhood and the sisterhood and pay it forward to the next fire department.”

Hughes said Chassell Fire Chief Curtis Judson told him the donations allowed his department to allocate money to specialized rescue equipment which took the department to a different level. “So it really warms our heart,” Hughes said. “We do this 365 days a year. We hope when we come up, they’re very appreciative and almost everybody is. I’m also just kind of biased with a son who went to Michigan Tech, when he said, ‘I can come back up to copper country.’ I love it.”