Road trip to Fire Expo in Harrisburg PA. Day 1
 
By Chief Andy Webster
July 23, 2018
 

For several years our department has been attending the Lancaster County Fire Expo in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. It is held in May at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center with about 500,000 square feet of floor space filled with all types of fire equipment vendors. We are able to see the same equipment that is displayed by the big fire equipment manufacturers at FDIC in April. But it only cost $9 dollars to get in. So each year we drive over 8 hours to Harrisburg and spend two days at the Expo, Friday and Saturday, and the other time we spend out in the surrounding counties visiting fire departments. We have met some of the nicest folks who have welcomed us into their firehouses and shared with us ideas that we have brought back to use in our own firehouse. A few we have visited multiple times to see our fellow firefighters and see what is new in their communities. The photos attached to this post was from our first day in Pennsylvania. The departments we visited are all located in Lancaster County with is Amish country. We saw many horse an buggies on the roadway, they have their own lanes, and were treated to some very fine Pennsylvania hospitality. Some firehouses we visited were not open as most of the departments there are all volunteer. We were fortunate to find some wth members their and they would reach out to their neighboring departments and arrange for us to tour the next firehouse on our journey. I've put captions under some to explain what it is or where we are. Enjoy and I'll post more from the Expo and our other firehouse visits.