Swan Valley Emergency Services receives canned drinking water from Anheuser-Busch

SWAN VALLEY – While engaging the Swan Valley Café structure fire Aug. 18, Swan Valley Emergency Services (SVES) volunteers were seen drinking from cans with the Anheuser-Busch logo. What was not always visible was the word WATER clearly printed on the outside of the can.

"Since the fire there has been a lot of questions asked about us drinking alcohol and it was not, it was water," SVES Fire Chief Randy Williams said.

SVES recently received a donation of canned emergency drinking water from the National Volunteer Fire Council and Anheuser-Busch, to help provide critical hydration to its responders during the 2022 wildfire season. The water will also be shared with the Swan Lake Volunteer Fire Department.

Since the inception of their emergency drinking water program in 1988, Anheuser-Busch and their wholesaler partners have worked alongside the American Red Cross to provide emergency drinking water to U.S. communities affected by natural disasters and other crises.

As reported on their website in 2019, Anheuser-Busch teamed up with the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) to support volunteer firefighters battling wildfires across the country and provide emergency drinking water. Clean drinking water is a necessity to help firefighters stay hydrated and healthy when responding to wildfires and large incidents. To date, the program has donated nearly 4.9 million cans of drinking water to more than 900 volunteer fire departments across the country.

Requirements for a department to receive the water through the NVFC include: must be over 50% volunteer, serve a population of 25,000 or less and be able to store and utilize the water within one year from packing.

On July 7, Flathead Beverage, a local Anheuser-Busch wholesaler partner, donated one pallet of canned water to Swan Valley Emergency Services to help support its wildfire response needs. Assistant Fire Chief Ryan Maloughney pointed out that the water can also be used on extended incidents, such as the Swan Valley Café structure fire.

Swan Valley Emergency Services (SVES) serves a population of approximately 1,000 people and has a response district of 320 square miles and responds to an average of 150 incidents a year. All responders are volunteers including the fire and medical chiefs.

"Firefighters lose a tremendous amount of fluid during high-intensity response such as battling wildfires," Williams said. "Proper hydration is critical to ensure the safety of our firefighters and to keep them performing at their best."

Maloughney wrote in a press release that in the past, SVES used plastic water bottles.

"Sitting in the hot sun, many times the plastic would start melting and leaking into the water. Aluminum cans will prevent this," Maloughney wrote. "Packing cans into [our] fire trucks is easier than packing plastic bottles."

Volunteer fire departments are able to request Anheuser-Busch emergency drinking water through the NVFC for their immediate or upcoming wildfire response needs. Additional information is available at http://www.nvfc.org/water.