New Fire Truck and Police Vehicles Unveiled

Community Invited to Participate in Century Old Fire Department Tradition

by Victor Moreno/LFN

City Leaders and department heads, and citizens of La Feria joined the La Feria Police Department and Fire Department in celebrating a new fire truck and new police units.

A ceremony was held on Friday, December 13, 2019 in front of the fire station where the new rescue vehicles were introduced and blessed.

Mayor Maldonado opened the ceremony with welcome remarks “we’re a very blessed city, the reason we are blessed is because these vehicles came out to zero dollars, for the city of La Feria”.

Among those in attendance were Sheriff Omar Lucio and Manny Vela, President and CEO of Valley Baptist Health System.

The emergency vehicles were then blessed by Reverend Rodolfo Franco of the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church. Assistant Fire Chief Reynaldo Lopez Jr. then shared the fireman’s prayer.

Fire Chief David Phinney then addressed the crowd “to say this is a proud day for me and our department is an understatement, we’ve been blessed, there’s a lot of behind the scenes people that have helped make this happen” referring to the acquisition of “Rescue 2” the city’s newest fire truck and the new police vehicles.

“We were blessed with a grant that was the first time in the grants’ history to award a truck through Access to Care which represents not only the City of La Feria and Bluetown / Santa Maria but Santa Rosa and most all of Western Cameron County where it’s needed, I believe that the future for this truck and this department is extremely bright” said Phinney.

On display were Rescue 1 and Rescue 2 fire trucks and three police units.

“I don’t think it takes much to look around with all the units that are here and see that the city of La Feria is on the rise” continued Phinney.

Phinney also mentioned that the $70,000 worth of equipment that goes on the fire truck was made possible by generous donations and that the department now has new bunker gear and is awaiting new breathing apparatus, equipment that the department has never had before which shows that the city, police and fire departments are doing things right and moving in the right direction.

All in attendance at the ceremony were then invited to participate in a century old firefighter tradition of “pushing the fire truck into service”.

A large crowd of people then joined with city officials and staff, police officers and firefighters in pushing Rescue 2 into it’s bay.

This was the first time in the city’s history that such a ceremony was held.