WAVERLY, Ohio — The Pebble Township Fire Department has received a shipment of emergency drinking water through a national program designed to keep volunteer firefighters hydrated during wildfires and other lengthy emergency responses, the department said.
The water arrived through the National Volunteer Fire Council’s Anheuser-Busch Emergency Drinking Water for Wildland Firefighters Program, a partnership the two organizations launched in 2019. Classic Brands Chillicothe, the local Anheuser-Busch distributor, delivered the shipment to the department’s station.
Department officials said in a Facebook post that the water will be kept on hand for wildland fires, structure fires, motor vehicle crashes and other emergency calls, where firefighters can spend hours working in full protective gear.
“Keeping our firefighters properly hydrated allows them to perform at their best when our community needs them most,” the department said in the post, thanking the National Volunteer Fire Council, Anheuser-Busch and Classic Brands Chillicothe for supporting volunteer firefighter health and safety.
Under the program, selected departments each receive a full pallet of 2,352 cans of water. To qualify, a department must be more than half volunteer, serve a population of 25,000 or fewer, and have responded to wildfires with plans to continue doing so. Since the program’s 2019 launch, Anheuser-Busch and the NVFC have distributed nearly 12 million cans of emergency drinking water to volunteer departments nationwide.
Pebble Township Fire Department is an all-volunteer department based on Carl Penn Road that responds to fires, crashes and medical emergencies throughout Pebble Township in Pike County.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Pebble Township Fire Department.
