KELLOGG –– Two firefighters from Shoshone County Fire District No. 2 will be going on the adventure of a lifetime in the name of goodwill.
Chief Scott Dietrich and Capt. Tyler Rotchford will head to South America next week to deliver a retired fire engine to a firefighting outfit in Bolivia.
This won’t be Dietrich’s first trip south of the equator. For the past eight years, he’s been a part of Medical Educators for Latin America, a nonprofit created by firefighters and physicians who travel to Bolivia and teach pre-trauma care to medical professionals and firefighters.
The group has also aided in the construction of schools and medical clinics.
“During these classes, we became friends with many of the Bolivian firefighters,” Dietrich said. “When we visited their stations, it was heartbreaking to see the lack of equipment they have and the disrepair of what little they do have. The government in Bolivia does not financially support emergency services like here in the United States.”
During his travels to Bolivia, Dietrich met with volunteer firefighting organization Grupo Especial de Operaciones de Salvamento (Special Rescue Operations Group) — or GEOS — who explained to him that they had some emergency equipment but were still in need of a fire engine.
This sparked an idea in Dietrich.
“When I returned home, Shoshone County Fire District 2 was just receiving a new fire engine that we purchased, and we had an old fire engine to part with,” Dietrich said. “I approached the Fire District Board of Commissioners, and they agreed to donate the engine to Medical Educators for Latin America — Idaho.”
Even with the donation of the 1989 Mack fire engine, getting it from Kellogg to Bolivia was going to come with significant costs.
Through fundraising efforts, MELA-ID and GEOS rounded up $25,000 to lowboy the engine to Seattle, get it on a cargo ship and shipped to Chile, where it is set to arrive Saturday.
Dietrich and Rotchford will fly to Bolivia next week, then travel with the GEOS to Chile to pick up the engine. They will then spend the next weeks training and familiarizing them with all of its intricacies before returning home in March.
Round-trip plane tickets to La Paz, Bolivia, are roughly $3,000 per person. This presented another hurdle, but thankfully, Jim’s Towing Company and owner Brandon Church stepped up to cover the costs.
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Publish date : 2025-02-13 19:05:00
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