CHICAGO (CBS) — More than a year after Naperville agreed to donate a retired fire truck to the city of Cancún, the truck is finally roaming the streets of Mexico.
After going through the lengthy process of transporting the 25-year-old ladder truck and getting it through customs, it has finally been put to use in its new home city.
Naperville Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis said it all started after he and other fire chiefs across the country received an email from the fire chief in Cancún, asking if they had any equipment that no longer was being used.
“I gave that some thought, and we actually had a fire truck that we were trying to sell for a number of years, and we were unsuccessful in doing that,” he said.
Puknaitis presented the idea to the Naperville City Council, which voted to donate the truck to Cancún in October 2014.
“It took us almost an entire year to get that truck cleared through immigration, and the logistics in transporting it,” Puknaitis said.
To get it to Mexico, they had to drive it to Miami, and stick it on a cargo ship, and then it sat in customs until the end of 2015.
“It arrived there about three months ago, and it has been in service, and utilized on a daily basis,” Puknaitis said.
The truck, which still has the name Naperville on it, has been spotted by local tourists on vacation in Mexico.
