07/26/2026
🚒 South River Fire Department – Building the Water Supply Infrastructure 🚒
This past week, members of the South River Fire Department, along with firefighters and apparatus from departments throughout the area and across the state, participated in the “Building the Water Supply Infrastructure” course instructed by JCK Academy.
The course consisted of two nights of classroom instruction, followed by one night of bringing everything together through hands-on training, and concluded Sunday with a full-scale evaluation.
The training focused on developing and maintaining large-scale water supply operations, including tanker/tender shuttles, dump sites, fill sites, drafting operations, relay pumping, large-diameter hose operations, and moving significant volumes of water where a traditional municipal water supply may be limited or unavailable.
A training event of this size would not have been possible without the tremendous participation and cooperation of our mutual-aid partners.
🚒 Fire Department:
• East Brunswick Dist 1
• East Brunswick Dist 2
• East Brunswick Dist 3
• North Brunswick Fire Co 1
• Madison Park
• Spotswood
• Monroe Station 51
• Monroe Station 57
• Middlesex County Fire Marshals
• Jamesburg
• South Amboy
• Linden
• Franklin Twp Dist 1 (Middlebush)
• Franklin Twp Dist 2 (Griggstown)
• Hopewell Twp
• Allentown Hope
• Marlboro
• Colts Neck
• South Plainfield
• Hazlet
We would also like to recognize and thank the Middlesex County Fire Coordinator and Middlesex County Office of Emergency Management for their assistance and support throughout the training.
👏 THANK YOU
We cannot thank all of the firefighters, officers, instructors, departments, agencies, and organizations enough for taking the time to come to our little town and participate in this training. Having departments from throughout the area working together provides invaluable experience and strengthens the relationships we depend on when a real large-scale emergency occurs.
💧 A Message to Our Residents Regarding Water Discoloration
The South River Fire Department would also like to sincerely apologize to any residents who experienced temporary water discoloration as a result of the large amount of water being moved during the training exercise.
We understand the inconvenience and concern this may have caused.
We would, however, like to make it clear that this training event was not organized on short notice. The proper chain of command was followed, and the Borough Business Administrator was notified more than a month in advance of the event. The Mayor and Borough Council were also reminded at the most recent Council meeting that this large-scale training exercise would be taking place and that fire departments and apparatus from throughout the state would be coming into South River.
Our intention was never to inconvenience our residents. This training was conducted to better prepare our firefighters and our mutual-aid partners for the type of major emergency where establishing and maintaining a reliable water supply can make a critical difference.
Thank you to our residents for your patience and understanding, and thank you again to JCK Academy and every department, firefighter, agency, and individual who helped make Building the Water Supply Infrastructure a successful training experience.
🚒💧 Training together. Working together. Preparing together.
