TIVOLI, NY - The Tivoli Fire Department held a wet-down ceremony for two new pieces of apparatus on Sunday, September 26th.

The fire department, located in Dutchess County, lost apparatus and their firehouse following a fire in July of 2019. They lost a fire engine and an ambulance in the blaze, along with their firehouse and equipment.

“The blessing was it brought this entire department together,” said Chief Marc Hildenbrand of Tivoli Fire, speaking about the fire that destroyed the firehouse. “It helped us recruit, it helped us update equipment and honestly it brought a lot of the camaraderie back to the firehouse.”

He went on to thank the mutual aid departments that responded to the fire at their station, who then donated equipment for the department following the fire.

The department rebuilt their old firehouse, but plans on having a new firehouse built with more space for meetings as well as showers and bunk rooms for their members and more, in order to meet the needs of the growing fire department with many new and young members.

Champagne bottles were broken on each piece of new apparatus prior to the wet-down ceremony.

“A wet-down is a ritual celebrated by many volunteer fire departments in the United States in which groups of firefighters from neighboring towns ritualistically commission a new fire apparatus by anointing it with water sprayed from visiting fire companies,” as described on the Tivoli Fire Department’s Facebook page.

Fire departments that assisted with the wet-down ceremony were Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Rhinecliff, Taghkanic, Germantown, Clermont and Milan.

Congratulations to Tivoli Fire for their brand new fire engine and ambulance!