MINNEAPOLIS - A second fire truck from Minneapolis is headed towards an African community badly in need of public safety help.

The Minneapolis City Council and Mayor R.T. Rybak on Friday approved the donation of a retired City of Minneapolis fire truck to the community's sister city Eldoret, Kenya.

The truck, a 1988 pumper, is the second retired fire truck that that the City of Minneapolis has donated to the City of Eldoret since 2011. Following the donation of the first truck, members of the Minneapolis Fire Department traveled to Eldoret in January 2011 to train Eldoret firefighters in firefighting and how to use and maintain the truck.

Members of the Eldoret Fire Brigade were schooled on firefighting skills, first aid, emergency response, and maintenance of the donated fire truck. The City of Eldoret is paying for the shipping of the fire truck.

Eldoret is a city of more than 360,000 people with very little reliable equipment for fighting fires. Before the donation of the first fire truck, Eldoret's only reliable fire truck was stationed at the airport and was not allowed to leave that location, making fighting fires in the city very difficult.

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