When last we read Donna’s words of wisdom, he was listing all his experiences (including non-response museum departments) and scholarly achievements.

He dropped those onto the folks at the eBay Sellers forum, too.  We’re talking about some web-savvy people here.  So when Donna says:  My Department Memberships in the past includes The City of Hagerstown,Maryland,The City Of Chambersburg,Maryland,The City of Cumberland,Maryland as well as many other smaller volunteer Departments throughout the East and West Coast.

It was only a matter of hours until everybody had learned that nobody had ever heard of him at Cumberland or the all-paid Hagerstown FD.  They also checked many of the surrounding VFD’s with the same result.  Of course, there’s no such place as Chambersburg, Maryland.  It’s always been in Pennsylvania.

Eventually, Donna’s silliness earned him the eBay nickname of “Fire Liar.”  One of the enterprising eBayers even designed a department patch for him:

Meanwhile, back at the fire forums Donna was still dispensing wisdom.  This time the subject was helmets.  (by then, all those firefighters were onto his/her game)  At first the thread was talking about the best way to re-paint a helmet.

One CRITICAL thing Id like to add about painting fire helmets…or ANY helmets for that matter is this….even though some people have no choice but to repaint thier helmets,it is STRONGLY advisable not to do this…simply because MOST paint products are highly combustible and NON fire-retardant.If you must paint your helmet then after you paint it,be sure to spray it done really thorough with a fire retardant…otherwise.
(next day)
ok….so paint your helmets then…just dont expect me to paint mine or none of my guys on my Dept.
I was always taught from way back when NEVER to paint helmets with storebought paints…especially areosols.
other ff’s response: I will keep an open mind here, however I have just one small request. Lead me to an article where JUST ONCE a helmet erupted into flames because it was recently repainted and I will stop thinking you are nuts. 

Im not here to argue over something as simple as this…I do not go by what may be in articles..but what I have seen during my experiences but as I stated before I will NEVER paint my helmets or my guys will NEVER paint thier helmets as we will buy new first.
I wasnt put into the Chief position for nothing so i must be doing something right so think as you may.

And then the thread began to wander a little bit:

I didnt realize that.I just thought the factory wouldve special treated those before putting them in service(the leather ones I mean).Mine is the leather traditional “New Yorker and painted white but all I do is scrub off the soot and stuff but I guess if I ever need to repaint it..then I will. Also I have an idea regarding helmets…and this is in regards to the black rubber bands for helmets.You can make those(instead of having to buy them) out of peices of bicycle intertubes..and they work very well and stand up to heat since thier actually made of a neoprene combination.We outfitted all of our helmets that way.

response: I think you meant to say truck innnertubes. I can’t see anyone gettin’ a bike tube around a helmet, and even if it was cut lengthwise, well, then you would have to tie it. Unless you have a really, really, large mellon.

Donna: what we did was cut the bike tubes lengthwise…then stapled the ends together but yes..I never thought of the ones from trucks.

You can’t make this stuff up, Folks.  Check back tomorrow when Donna gets into the pits with the eBayers.

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed