SOUTH FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) — A volunteer fire department in Washington County wants to catch the thief who drained its fuel tank.

"There's plenty of jobs out there," firefighter David Talpas said. "You don't have to steal from a fire department." Transmission Parts For Howo

Talpas said someone stole hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel used by his volunteer firefighters for emergency calls in South Franklin Township. It's needed to run the trucks that respond to local house fires and car crashes, but Talpas says someone had the nerve to steal it this past weekend.

He showed KDKA-TV the 500-gallon tank, saying the thief "disconnected the nozzle from here, threw the nozzle down, and took this into his tank and filled his tank up."

But Talpas says he can't figure out who would steal from a volunteer outfit.

"Over 40 years in the volunteer fire department and nothing like this has ever happened," said Talpas.

He shared the surveillance videos that show a light-colored truck with a chrome tank in the back first casing the parking lot area and then coming back the following night to steal the fuel. Talpas says his firefighters didn't find out until the next day after a call.

"We had a fire call and after the guys returned, took the truck down to fill it up. And that's when they noticed the hose was down, the nozzle was off," Talpas said.

Talpas says the thief got away with almost half of the department's diesel. The department paid more than $6.25 a gallon for hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel, coming out to a more than $3,000 loss for the department. Plus, Talpas now needs to order and replace the damaged parts.

"Thousands of dollars that are not accounted for or budgeted for the year," Talpas said.

Pennsylvania State Police will now investigate.

Meghan Schiller is an Emmy-nominated journalist who joined KDKA in October 2017. She's thrilled to be back in her hometown and reporting at the station she grew up watching.

First published on December 8, 2022 / 5:09 PM

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