ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The fire truck in the village of Quinhagak had mechanical problems. But even when it worked, it was useless much of the year.
The truck was emptied of water in winter to keep it from freezing when temperatures in the Bering Sea coastal village dropped below zero. So when a fire call came in, volunteers had to rush to the village school to get the water truck - and fill it from the village water tank.
``That took a lot of time,'' said Peter Foster, Quinhagak's tribal police officer in the village of 572 people in Southwest Alaska. ``We don't have to do that now.''
In rural Alaska, where bucket brigades still exist, dozens of villages now have a ``fire department in a box'' - a new concept in firefighting. The equipment - contained in two shiny metal trailers that can be hooked up to small pickups, all-terrain vehicles or even snowmobiles - uses compressed air to produce firefighting foam from a small amount of water.
The equipment is more suitable to rural areas for several reasons. In cash-strapped villages, it is less expensive to maintain than a fire truck and needs no fire house. It maneuvers easily on poor roads, even tundra. It can be used where water is scarce or mostly frozen. Where water is available, it comes with a pump.
``In a small compact package you have the ability to produce 1,200 gallons of firefighting foam in a very short period of time,'' said Tom Harris, president and chief executive of Alaska Village Initiatives, an Anchorage nonprofit that developed the Micro-Rural Fire Department, as it's formally called.
It takes 5 seconds for the firefighting foam to activate, and 600 gallons can be discharged in as quickly as 90 seconds. It's been tested to 40 degrees below zero.
Quinhagak was one of five Alaskan villages chosen in 2000 for the pilot program of the federally funded Project Code Red because it was considered fireprone. The project's goal is to provide 250 rural Alaskan communities with the equipment in five years.
The trailers contain all the firefighting equipment, including a 30-gallon solution tank to make the foam, 400 feet of hose, a 100-foot hose reel and a water pump, as well as hand-held extinguishers, an ice auger, helmets, gloves, goggles and pick axes.
Two instructors and 28 hours of training are provided over three days to teach village residents how to use the equipment.
The equipment is a big improvement over bucket brigades or the ``bulldozer method'' of firefighting, where firefighters knock down the building on fire or try to remove the buildings next to it to keep the flames from spreading.
For the first time in those villages, firefighters have a real chance of beating the blaze.
Two days after Quinhagak got its training in May 2002, there was a house fire that was extinguished in two minutes and contained to one room.
``I personally believe it is the most important step taken to protect rural Alaska from fire,'' said Steve Schreck, a state fire training specialist for Project Code Red.
The program got its start in 1999 with $482,000 in federal money secured by Sen. Ted Stevens. In June, Stevens got an additional $3 million in program grants attached to a bill reauthorizing the U.S. Fire Administration.
Battling flames in rural areas of Alaska can be daunting. Villages can't easily accommodate full-size fire trucks. There may be no piping or hydrant system to easily get water on a fire. Roads can be rough, usually dirt or gravel, with boardwalks instead of paved sidewalks. Even small fires easily get out of hand, leading to loss of life and property.
In the Bering Sea village of St. Paul, for example, shortly before Christmas in 1999, a fast-moving electrical house fire killed a mother and her three children. The victims were the family of the Russian Orthodox priest on St. Paul Island.
``When they responded, their fire truck was so old the tank had rusted out. As they tried to pour water on the fire, there was more water running out of the bottom of the truck,'' said investigator Carol Olson, a deputy fire marshal.
Kwethluk, a village of 730 people located 75 miles from Quinhagak, had a working fire truck, but the building it was housed in was so old the truck was stored empty so it wouldn't fall through the floor. Sometimes, the one person in the village with the key to the fire truck can't be quickly located.
``We get these stories all the time,'' Olson said.
Not surprisingly, the number of fire deaths in Alaska runs well above the national average. In 2002, the state had nine fire-related deaths per 1,000 fires, more than 50 percent above the national average.
Fifty-five Alaska communities now have the new equipment, and 12 units are being built. The units, at about $70,000 each including shipping and training, cost less than one-third the price of an average fire truck, Harris said.
Nicholas Lupsin, the village police officer in the Yup'ik village of St. Michael along Norton Sound, said the equipment was used June 17 to put out a beach fire started by children playing.
``As soon as we heard there was a fire, we grabbed the equipment and a four-wheeler,'' Lupsin said. ``It was so easy. We brought the water pumps right to the beach.
Lupsin said about 10 people in the western Alaska village of 390 are trained to use the equipment, and the village holds weekly training sessions.
Quinhagak dedicated its equipment to Suzie Mark, a 33-year-old woman who died in February 1999 after pulling her three children from their burning home. Once her children were safe, Mark ran back inside the home - no one is sure why - and was overcome by carbon monoxide. A small plaque bearing her Yup'ik Eskimo name ``Naullaq'' is on the equipment.
