OGUNQUIT, Maine — Mainers are joining forces to send aid to Ukraine; help that might otherwise be hard to find.
The Ogunquit Fire Department has become a collection site for equipment since early June, now destined for firefighters in the embattled European nation. Maine departments were eager to help, filling a large storage room and a two-bay garage in town.
Much of the equipment was forced out of use by American fire protocols, but they still have useful life left. Ogunquit Chief Russell Osgood said this will be a massive help to first responders who are facing unimaginable situations.
"Talking with the guys — the firefighters from Ukraine — and learning that they’re working in a building that’s been collapsed because of a bomb; they’re finding bodies; they’re finding unexploded ordinance; they’re putting out fires," he explained. "And they’re always at the risk of having another attack at the same time."
The Ellsworth Fire Department jumped at the chance to help. Deputy Chief Doug Belletete and some of his peers drove a trailer to Ogunquit, piled high with equipment. He knows better than most what Ukranian firefighters are dealing with.
Before working in Ellsworth, he served 11 years as a private firefighting contractor in Iraq and Africa. Belletete said he had to wear a bulletproof vest under his heavy fire gear and recalled fighting a fire in Baghdad while repeated mortar attacks rained down.
"We hugged the ground and the fire hose, and hoped and prayed for the best while trying to keep the stream on the fire to the best of our ability until it was over, until we could get back up and continue the advance," Belletete said.
Osgood planned to get all the gear shipped south to New Jersey by July 15. He said a Ukrainian-American firefighter there has been coordinating efforts in the Northeast. Osgood was in talks with some people on how to move it, but said, if anyone in Maine has a trucking company and is willing to lend a hand, they would welcome the assistance. They'll also be collecting equipment from departments until around July 15.
Then, the equipment, and even the names of some of the departments and the firefighters themselves, would be on the front lines of rescue efforts, in the hands of people these Mainers would likely never meet.