The Meridian Fire Department receives generous Donation

The Meridian Fire Department recently received an $18,000 donation from Colonial Pipeline. The Chief tells us what that means for his department.

“We received 18,000 in total from colonial pipeline. It was purely a donation, not a grant or anything like that. They reached out to us and offered the 8001st of all its two separate things,” said Collier.

Collier says that $8,000 will be used to send two firefighters to an industrial firefighting school in Texas.

“It's an advanced school for pipelines refineries, all those industrial types of firefighting. So that not only pays for two of them to attend the course but also for their travel with meals, hotels, gas and all that. So it's completely free for us to send thanks to Colonial Pipeline.”

The other $10,000 will be used for an ongoing project the fire department has that involves getting new radios.

"We're in the process of upgrading our radios and they're very expensive. So instead of getting it alone and having a note for years to come, we're just trying to find it within our budget in the private sector, such as ColonialPipeline," said the Chief.

Currently, the Department is unable to talk to their County counterparts such as Metro Ambulance and the Sheriff's Department since they upgraded their radios and the Chief says getting new radios is a necessary change.

“Even if the county hadn't already done it, we would still need to do this moving forward because it's just such a better system of the technology since we changed to the last system is greatly improved,” stated Collier.

The department needs a total of 40 handheld radios and 18 mobile radios and so far have been able to purchase four from the donation from Colonial Pipeline.