Pomona donates fire truck to another department in need

POMONA — The Easter Bunny didn’t deliver to the tiny Flint Hills town of McFarland, but someone from the town was more than happy to come to Pomona to get the Easter gift — a used fire truck.

After hearing that McFarland lost its only fire truck, the Pomona department offered to give the town a surplus fire truck, Pomona Fire Chief Stan Lantis said.

Two members of Waubaunsee Fire District No. 7, Paxico/McFarland, picked up the truck, a 1974 Ford fire truck, in Pomona Saturday.

“Those two guys were thrilled to get it,” Lantis said. “They were down to fighting fires with water buckets and gunny sacks.”

Lantis said he was told that McFarland’s sole truck, which had a Diesel engine, blew a cylinder.

“If you know Diesels, they’re expensive to repair and to fix it would have represented as much as their total budget for the year,” Lantis said.

Alan Radcliffe, county fire marshal and assistant Pomona fire chief, heard about McFarland’s plight during a state conference and he called Lantis.

Pomona had taken the Ford pumper out of service and had planned to sell it.

“It was a great way for one small town to help out another small town,” Lantis said.

Pomona originally got the truck from Spring Hill in 1989 after that city bought a new truck, he said.