Miami-Dade gear headed for Dominican Republic fire corps

A plea from a Dominican Republic fire department colonel is being answered by Miami-Dade County with a load of free equipment, deemed obsolete by county fire-fighting standards.

Col. Danny Rafael Morin submitted a county “Surplus Property Allocation Application” last March that wound up on the desk of Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez, who managed to rustle up eight helmets and 50 sets of bunker coats, bunker pants, pairs of gloves, hoods, pairs of boots, suspenders and earflaps.

The equipment is bound for the province of Monte Plata, a 200-square-mile area of a tad more than 200,000 residents in south central Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

The equipment is all categorized as “obsolete” by the county but can still be of use to the “bomberos” protecting the citizens of Monte Plata, some 835 miles southeast of Miami.

Miami-Dade estimated the donation value of the equipment at around $8,700. The 50 earflaps, for example, were a bargain at $150. The most expensive items were the 50 bunker coats, at $3,250. The 50 suspenders, however, were the real bargain, priced at $0.

A call by Miami Today to the Caribbean fire house last week revealed a total of 38 firefighters stand watch over the province. Presumably at least 30 of them already have helmets.