This is completely off vw topic, but since you brought up 'rural fire department'. My small town had a 70's era flat front end (cab over) ford fire truck. The details are not important beyond its a town of 100+ people, so buying a new one is completely not going to happen. ~ Nothing I'm about to tell you is exaggerated in ANY way.
So for about 10 years every time someone called the FD the old yellow truck was driven out the door, and everyone in town placed bets on how far they would make it before they had to turn back and cancel their response!
Most of the time the truck made it 2 or 3 blocks then let out a giant poof of black smoke. Then lost all its power, and limped back to the fire house at half walking speed. Every year they spent tax dollars on trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with it.
They sent it to ford dealers, chevy dealers, and local auto repair shops. No one could figure it out. I can't begin to tell you how many houses burned flat from no local fire truck to respond. The firemen drove their own trucks and used the available supplies in place of the truck. But the slow response times from bringing in fire trucks from 15 to 20 miles away left most of the calls as complete losses.
Eventually a FD from another city donated their old truck to the city. But for about 10 years we basically had no fire protection. Your words reminded me of this... as we used to joke about the day when the whole town would burn flat from the old yellow truck. That truck was sold to a local recycler and later recycled after they couldn't make it run either.
