St. George Island is getting a new, blue fire truck. The Sitka Sentinel reports that the community has been without a fire engine for more than five years, so when Sitka announced it was trying to get rid of the aging engine “Smokey Blue,” St. George stepped up. The city bought the truck for $1, but will pay to have it shipped out to the Pribilofs. It left Sitka on Wednesday and should arrive in Unalaska later this month. From here it will continue on to St. George.

Unalaska is also planning to give away one of its emergency vehicles to a community in need. Cold Bay will get a retired ambulance that Unalaska’s City Council voted to donate in September. The community's current ambulance is on its last legs.

"It's a van-type, a 1986 Ford, and we've just been having problems with it lately," says Cold Bay mayor George Lopez. "It's died on us a couple of times as we were trying to get patients off of a Coast Guard helicopter and that put us in a predicament that I don't ever want to be in again."

Cold Bay receives many of the medevac patients from Bering Sea fishing vessels because of the community's all-weather air strip.

The final paperwork for transfer of the vehicle is still being sorted out, but the ambulance is slated to head over to the community on the first ferry of the summer season. Cold Bay will pay for the shipping.