More than 800 gallons of surplus hydraulic oil is no longer needed at the Marine Corps Base in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will now help support the equipment used by the South Carolina Forestry Commission to fight fires.
Property disposal specialist Richard Slesinski, from the Defense Logistics Agency Disposal Services site in Camp Lejeune, said the 162-gallon five-gallon cans were not used without an expiration date, which means a long life useful.
“The forestry people were lucky with this one,” said Slesinski.
Equipment and fleet manager Doug Mills said the oil will support a fleet of 102 Caterpillar D4K2 fire fighting bulldozers. During firefighting operations, Mills said that these bulldozers face a demanding environment.
“Various obstacles, such as branches, stumps, mud, falling debris and more, are encountered and often cause serious damage to hoses and hydraulic connections,” said Mills. “Spare buckets of hydraulic fluid are a necessity when operating this equipment in these conditions.”
Mills said that obtaining the oil will greatly help the fleet maintenance program by providing these buckets at no cost to frontline firefighters. Without the Reuse, Transfer and Donation program that DLA Disposal Services offers, Mills said the Forestry Commission would not be able to provide a spare bucket of hydraulic oil for each bulldozer.
“In the case of a hydraulic failure, they would have to call a mechanic and wait several hours until they came up with replacement hydraulic oil,” said Mills. “This would cause a delay in firefighting operations and, possibly, the equipment would be taken out of service for a day or two until the oil could be replaced.”
Mills said the oil he received was not the first time that his program received items via RTD and he plans to use the program again.
“The South Carolina Forestry Commission is very grateful for the items we received through the program,” said Mills.