BATAVIA, Ohio — A Stonelick Township Fire Department tender spent about three hours shuttling water to a barn fire in neighboring Brown County early Sunday, joining a task force of departments called in to help extinguish the blaze.
Tender 40 was dispatched around 3 a.m. Sunday, along with crews from several other area departments, to assist the Mount Orab Fire Department with the barn fire, the Stonelick Township Fire Department said in a Facebook post. The tender remained on scene shuttling water for approximately three hours.
Rural stretches of Brown County have few fire hydrants, so departments responding to structure fires there typically rely on tankers and tenders to relay water from a fill site to the fire ground in a process known as a water shuttle, allowing engine crews to keep a continuous flow on the fire without a hydrant connection.
Stonelick Township Fire Department is headquartered at Station 40 on U.S. 50 in Batavia and also operates Station 41 on Stonelick Williams Corner Road. The department was established in 2006, built on the foundation of the former Owensville Fire Department, and now provides round-the-clock fire suppression and advanced life support paramedic service, with full-time firefighter-paramedics supplemented by volunteers.
Clermont County fire departments routinely cross county lines to help neighboring jurisdictions such as Brown County under mutual-aid agreements, sending engines, tankers and personnel to fires that exceed a single department’s water supply or staffing.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Stonelick Township Fire Department.