The fire engine will serve with volunteer firefighters there due the efforts of Jorge Narvaez Jr., a Princeton police officer.
PRINCETON -- Jorge Narvaez Jr. travels to his native Nicaragua every two years or so to visit his father and relatives.
The 22-year Princeton police officer does as much humanitarian work as possible too, helping police there with their computers and expertise, and coordinating donations.
"I have always been inclined to help because I know the needs they have," he said.
Two years ago, Narvaez received a pretty large request during a visit to a fire station in the capital of Managua - firefighting equipment, and maybe even a fire truck?
Narvaez said he would do what he could, but made no promises. When he got back to the states, Narvaez was quickly able to get some old fire hoses and gear from the Princeton Fire Department.
But during a conversation with Princeton volunteer firefighter and former fire chief Ray Wadsworth, Narvaez learned the Ivy League town was replacing two trucks, and they had an idea.
On Wednesday, a year-long effort to deliver a former Mercer Engine Co. 3 truck to the volunteer corps in Nicaragua takes a major step forward when the truck - a 1982 Mack pumper - drives onto Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst to await a ride to Central America on a U.S. Air Force Reserve military plane.
"I am really glad that it worked out," Narvaez said Tuesday. "It's going to be put to good use."
Narvaez, who is also a member of the 108th Security Forces Squadron, an Air National Guard unit at the joint base, said it was an amazing journey of paperwork and luck.
First, he said, they wrote letters to the town council and emergency management officials with the idea. The town liked it and set up a symbolic auctioning of the truck, which Wadsworth won for $1.
"Then it became, how do we get it there?" Narvaez said.
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He researched driving it to a port and shipping it himself. The cheapest way was to put it on a flatbed truck and haul it to Baltimore, for $1,300, but getting it to Nicaragua would tally $8,000.
Then he had to move it within the country once there, he said.
So Narvaez started working to ship it via the Denton Program, a government program that allows U.S. citizens and organizations to use space available on military cargo aircraft to transport humanitarian goods to countries in need.
More paperwork, an inspection and measuring of the truck by Air Force officials followed, so they could assign possibly assign it to a flight.
This spring, Narvaez got word that the mission was a go.
But then the Air Force realized the fire truck would not roll onto a cargo plane like a tank or military vehicle, so they had to build special, wood ramps specifically for loading a 33,000-pound fire truck.
That job was assigned to the 108th's Traffic Management Office, which built two ramps and six pedestals with plywood that created a gradual climb for the truck.
The flight that will take the plane to Nicaragua has not officially een scheduled, but Narvaez said it could be at the end of this week.
Once delivered, the truck will go in service to a group of firefighters who are in constant need of supplies and whose building was damaged in a 1972 earthquake.
"They were in dire need," he said, recalling how he toured the building in 2014.
"But this was not just me," Narvaez said of the effort. "There was a whole bunch of people supporting this."
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.