NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- New York State returned 1,000 acres of ancestral land to the Onondaga Nation in late September -- just weeks ahead of Native American Heritage Month -- acknowledging their rightful stewardship.
With the newly regained land and a drought watch issued for upstate earlier this week, the Nation is urgently focusing on updating their fire department's equipment to mitigate potential fire risks.
The Onondaga Nation Volunteer Fire Department is unique, being the country's first all-Native volunteer fire department. This distinction highlights the Nation's sovereignty and independence from the United States, as the fire department operates without federal or state funding, relying solely on volunteers and community support. With that, much of the equipment the firefighters use have come from donations and are largely in need of an upgrade.
“A jacket, the pants, boots, the helmets, the masks, all these things that have to be prepared to assist in whatever different situations there are,” Sid Hill, the Tadodaho, or traditional leader of the six-nation Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, told 1010 WINS.
The lack of updated equipment poses a challenge to the firefighters, especially with the increased risk of fires due to the drought watch.
"What we're worried about is how bad these forest fires or brush fires are going to get if we do have a real bad drought," he said. "Then we'd have to travel probably 15 to 20 minutes to an area [and] we got this land back probably about five miles off the Nation, we would take them a little bit of a trip to get up there to contain that fire."
Hill added that spent fuel rods, which are highly radioactive, are transported through their territory on Route 81 and if an accident occurs during a transport, their fire department would not be equipped enough to assist.
Members of the Nation hosted a fundraising event on Wednesday night at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on the Upper West Side to benefit the fire department with a screening of "The Good Mind," a film that follows the Nation's continuous environmental advocacy while battling state lawmakers to regain their ancestral lands.
Filmmaker Gwendolen Cates chose the title as a gesture to the Nation's philosophy and way of life, which they call the Good Mind, an approach that has been with the Haudenosaunee since their beginning and teaches people to think more positive thoughts and implementing those thoughts into decisions that not only benefit the present but future generations as well.
The fire department shows that every day because, in addition to helping those within their community, they're also helping their neighboring communities. They’ve received over 500 calls this year to assist surrounding areas and have been busy doing so, which Hill said is “just being a good neighbor.”
“That’s how a community should help,” he said, “and that’s what the Good Mind is all about, [it] is just helping each other as a community to make sure, first of all, that the elders and the children are safe. That’s our mandate, as people, as leaders, as individuals, as a community, to look out for those who sometimes can’t protect themselves.”
In protecting those who protect, the Nation is asking for $230,000 to cover ten protective suits and other gear to allow firefighters to battle fires safely. Though the event has already passed, the fundraiser is still open. Click here to learn more and donate.