An Isle of Man charity has been donated a former Fire and Rescue Service fire engine which will be driven to the war torn country before the end of this month and handed over to volunteer firefighters in Mykolaiv. Simon Richardson takes up the story.
Manx Newscast
Manx Newscast: Former Fire and Rescue Service fire engine bound for Ukraine
Hello, I'm Simon Richardson from the Manx Radio Newsroom, and a former Isle of Manfire and Rescue service vehicle is heading for Ukraine after being presented to a local charity. The Volvo Fire Engine was owned by Trimode-based Events Business, ELS, and acquired by an anonymous donor for local charity, Manx Support for Ukraine. The vehicle will be driven to Michelayov in southern Ukraine, where the local fire station was destroyed by Russian forces. The vehicle will be filled with equipment, including machinery and medical supplies, and driven to the country by a group of volunteers, including the charity's trustee, Jim Quinn. I spoke to Jim, but firstly, Justin McMullen, from ELS. Yes, so just to be clear, obviously, we're not donating. It's a very kind donor who is remaining anonymous, and they very kindly purchased it from us. We purchased it from an auction, some months ago, for part of one of our other business interests, the way we do cover for motorsport events and other things. That was the thought process behind purchasing it in the first place. Jim and I have known each other for some time. We got talking at an event recently where we were discussing a project that I worked on many years ago, where we sent some fire engines out to Romania, and I was one of the lucky people to drive one out to Romania and donate it to the local fire service out there. So part of that conversation, we were just talking about Ukraine and Jim's been working on that for quite some time, donating equipment from the Isle of Man and other places. It came obviously, realistically, this vehicle was going to take us some time to get it back to an operational state, and for what we wanted to do with it, whereas the people of Ukraine are crying out for things like this at the minute. We had a discussion, and then the offer was made, I said, "Well, I'll tell you what, why don't we try and do something with this vehicle? Let's send it to Ukraine and make a difference." Jim, this is some donation. It's a fantastic vehicle, and it's going to be very valuable to out-imagine to people there. Yes, it is going to be very, very valuable to the fire station out in Nikolay, which is going to be its final destination. The fire station in Nikolay was leveled in the invasion in 2022. The chief fire officer had a built missile head by two centimeters, but even though our life was put at risk highly, she came back to work, got over any issues that she had to, she came back to work, and started the rebuild of the fire station, and the fire services there are 100% volunteers at this moment in time. The fire engine that they could salvage from all the wreckage and things like that is 1964. The addition of this fire engine is an absolutely fantastic thing. The fire engine that they have, they have to go to a water source, they can't carry water with them. But that takes a lot of time for them to actually pump the water from hydrants or whatever. I'm not a fireman, Justin knows more about that than me. So we are working, might support for Ukraine, are working in conjunction with another charity in the UK, and they are raising funds to build new housing for the fire stations. So our aim is to get this out by the end of October, and that's when everybody is going to be there to talk about the build and put down the initial foundations for the new shelter for the fire engine. And the shelter for the fire engine is 100% a necessity because of the weather swings in Ukraine. So we were talking earlier, it could be 40 degrees in the summer and it could be -25 in the winter. And these fire officers, when they get the call, they have to go out and sometimes dig the fire engines out and things like that. So the shelter is required for this, but having this unit here, this fire engine, absolutely phenomenal, they can move faster, they can move more efficiently, they don't have to have water sources, it's got its own water source and it can pump straight from the engine. Everything works on it, it's got spotlights, it's got receptacles for ladders and things like that on it as well. But we're going to try and get as much equipment donated for the actual unit itself over the next few weeks before it goes out, with Justin's help as well. Justin is being very, very modest, when he says he's not donating it, partly he is. Justin could actually get three times, four times the money for this unit. But he's working alongside with us because he's a generous guy, he's helping us out massively. It is a fantastic donation, how's it actually getting to Ukraine? Personally, I'll be driving it myself, we have a set up of drivers within my support for Ukraine, all volunteers, and the pill of drivers have got different, various licenses. So the other guys who have HGV within the pill of drivers, then they will be helping drive out there. When it goes out there, we will have it filled with as much medical aid, as much extra equipment as possible, that we can gather from the island. Not one part of this engine will be empty when we drive out there, so it could be walking sticks, wheelchairs, tonnequets, iFacts, first aid kits, personal first aid kits, anything that we can get our hands on to go out there and help the fire station out there. Even heaters to keep the fire station warm and all that sort of stuff, during the winter, anything like that, generators, this unit here will be filled up with it and it will go out there. How hard is it now to raise money for Ukraine? Is it getting more difficult? Are people becoming blasey about it? Obviously the world is in a very, very bad situation at this moment in time. There are lots of places around the world having difficulties, the run wars, the run invasions, all that sort of thing. But we have to just focus on mic support for Ukraine, it's in the name, that's what we have to focus on. We do have people saying, what are you doing about Gaza, what's happening with Israel, what's happening with Lebanon, all that sort of stuff, but we have mic support for Ukraine. So that is our focus, is Ukraine at this moment in time. We're only a very, very small organisation. We had a fundraiser last Friday and that was a three-coaster now where the guest speaker cross from Kyiv, but this guest speaker is actually Chris Garrop from Peel. He runs a humanitarian charity called Praveel and he does EOD, main clearance, that sort of thing, out in Ukraine and he came across and we had a fundraiser and the fundraiser we ended up with about eight and a half thousand pounds. So that's not too substantial, it's a substantial summon, it enables us to do a lot of things. But as soon as we get that money into the bank account it goes, it doesn't set the atom faster or try to get interested in how the money is raised and it has to be used straight away because the conflict is happening now. Raising funds, the banks population, the people of the Isle of Man are so generous, absolutely fantastic. The businesses on the island are absolutely fantastic, they are so generous, they are helping us out. We have the steam packet helping us, we have big red storage, we have ELS, we have Zurich, Dandara, Polka stars, we have GE Whites as well, we have a lot of people that help us out in many, many different ways, not always cash donations or funds, it could be helping us out with storage, it could be helping us out with logistics, anything at all. So yeah, a big thank you to all the companies that do help us out on the island. Something as small as I'm sure, giving us some cards for the drivers to drive out there so they can stay in contact with people going through Europe so it doesn't actually cost them anything else. Yeah, absolutely amazing things by the businesses on the island and we have a fantastic community over here, such a generous community, beautiful souls, beautiful people, much the same as the Ukrainian people as well. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manxeradian Newscast, you are obviously someone with exquisite taste, may I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manxeradia podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone, thank you. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]