Gerald McCombs of Truck Center and Ed Petroff of Skyline Towing presented the Wright City Fire Protection District with a joint donation of $35,000 along with an additional $1,000 from Heartland Packing that will be put toward purchasing and outfitting the district’s new regional incident support unit. 

The regional incident support unit, a Ford Transit van, will be used to coordinate the district’s drone operations and work with other agencies during emergency situations. Wright City Fire Chief Ron MacKnight said he hoped the van would not only be an asset for Wright City but for Warren County and the surrounding region. 

“This is going to be not just a countywide asset, but a regional asset for command type situations for disaster response, structure fire response, with anything we can support,” MacKnight said. “With communications, with drones, with the ability to see from above, we’ll have monitored radios and everything here.”

The Wright City Fire Protection District is one of the few first responder agencies that currently have an active drone program that can be used in crisis scenarios. Others, like the Truesdale and Wright City Police Departments have just recently brought their drone programs off the ground. 

MacKnight also credited McCombs with helping the district to jump start that drone program back in 2016. 

“Truck Center is the reason we have a drone program, because they approached us in 2016 and said, ‘how can we help the fire district?’ And he and I had been tossing that drone program around and so we said ‘let’s see if we can start a drone program’ and they stepped up and they’re the reason we are now regionally known as a premier aerial reconnaissance team,” MacKnight said. 

McCombs and Petroff were happy to join forces to contribute to the district and Petroff said they thought the $35,000 between the two of them would be a good “head start.”

“These guys are fantastic down here, we are very appreciative of what they do for the community. We know they’re there for us if something happens at our facility so of course we make sure we take good care of their equipment,” McCombs said. 

While the $36,000 already received by the district covers a significant portion of the command unit’s $58,000 price tag, they still need to outfit the van with the equipment necessary for its designated line of service. 

They still need to make a number of additions to the van before it is ready to enter the field. MacKnight said they still need to purchase and install sirens, lights, radios, decals, an onboard generator, improved air circulation, two workstations and a monitor attached to the rear doors. 

From there, MacKnight hopes to garner some support from the Warren County commissioners, and said he has asked them to allocate some of the county’s remaining ARPA funds to cover the unpaid expenses. 

Discussion on the regional incident support unit was not listed on any of the upcoming County commission agendas at the time of publication. 

Wright City Mayor Michelle Heiliger was also present at the event and was happy to see the improvements being made at the district. 

“The thing that sort of sets us apart right now is being long-term thinkers. We’re looking down the road and seeing what’s coming to us and we’re working really hard to develop partnerships with the businesses in the area and the municipalities around us,” Heiliger said. “Because if we support each other, then the growth is going to be successful.”

Heiliger also served as president of the district’s board of directors.