About $15,000 worth of equipment that had been stolen from Ingomar Volunteer Fire Company over the weekend has been recovered.
The equipment had been taken from the fire department’s substation on Perry Highway in Wexford Flats, said Fire Chief Gregory Quatchak. It’s unclear exactly when the theft occurred, Quatchak said, but he suspects it happened Saturday evening, July 30.
Volunteer firefighters who arrived at the substation for a call Sunday evening July 31 discovered that the station had been robbed.
“Someone had broken a glass window in a door on the front, left side of the building and entered the building,” Quatchak said.
Firefighters discovered that the compartments where equipment is stored on both trucks housed at the substation were open and items missing, including pry-bars, axes, hand tools and the hydraulic rescue tool often referred to as the “jaws of life,” Quatchak said.
They notified McCandless police, who are investigating the theft.
Though the thieves have yet to be apprehended, Quatchak said, the missing equipment — which he estimated to be worth roughly $15,000 — was recovered.
“I actually picked up all the recovered equipment today,” Quatchak said Tuesday, Aug. 2.
Overnight Sunday into Monday, Pennsylvania State Police recovered the equipment.
State police were responding to a traffic accident in Bedford County, Quatchak said, when a vehicle sped through the accident scene. Police pursued the vehicle, which wrecked. The driver and any passengers fled the car before police could apprehend them, but they left the stolen equipment in the vehicle.
The vehicle had been stolen in Virginia a few weeks prior.
Pennsylvania State Police transported the stolen equipment to Pittsburgh, where Quatchak retrieved it.
“Everything has been returned,” he said. “We’re very fortunate. I didn’t think we’d ever see it again.”
The fire department did not have security cameras to capture images of the theft.
“We’ve never thought we would need security cameras at a fire station,” he said, adding that he was surprised someone would steal equipment that is used “to save lives.”
They will, however, be installing security cameras now, Quatchak said.
