On the afternoon of May 18th, over 40 folks from the Fairlee, VT/Orford NH region and surrounding area (plus Connecticut & Massachusetts) got together to haul water for 2-hours using tankers. The event was the culmination of our 16-hr Rural Water Supply Operation Seminar that was sponsored by the Upper Valley Mutual Aid Association and hosted by the Fairlee VFD. The crews spent all day Saturday and Sunday reviewing the best practices of hauling water with tankers and then got the chance to run a 2-hr drill with the goal of an uninterrupted flow. The drill was held at a local camp along Lake Fairlee's shore. The first half of the drill focused on supporting a "rural hitch" operation and then the work transitioned to a dump tank operation. Everyone worked really hard and had a chance to see a number of best practices in action. Many thanks to the leadership of the Upper Valley Mutual Aid Association for the excellent logistical support and many more thanks to the Fairlee VFD and Upper Valley Ambulance for sharing their training room and station facilities with us. Instructors for the weekend were Mark Davis and Alan Butsch.
Five tankers were used to support this 3-dump tank operation. A peak flow of 1000 gpm was attained during the latter part of the drill.