They may ride it up to a drive-in window. You may see it in the summer school parking lot.

But if you spot a couple of kids riding around in a white, 1971 GMC fire tanker with Caw Caw Volunteer Fire Department painted on the doors, tell them the department needs it back.

"That's the lifeblood of a fire department. If you don't have a tanker, you don't have water. If you don't have water, then you can't fight fires," said Randy Stabler, chairman of the fire department board.

Firefighters discovered their two tankers were missing Thursday. Someone -- authorities are thinking kids did the deed -- apparently kicked in the back door of the fire station and stole the department's only two water tankers, the only two vehicles without kill switches.

About mid-afternoon Thursday, the department's 2,700-gallon tanker was recovered in a wooded area off a nearby frontage road. Its fender was in a pine tree, and the front of the vehicle was damaged, Stabler said. The tanker's going to be checked out and repaired before it can hit the road again, and Stabler doesn't know how long that's going to take.

The 1,300-gallon tanker was still missing Thursday evening. Deputies and volunteer firemen were checking dirt roads and hunting paths in the hopes of finding it abandoned somewhere.

Calhoun County Sheriff Thomas Summers said, "I can't recall a fire truck ever being stolen before, not in my 10 years as sheriff."

"They don't realize the damage they've done, monetarily or to the community if they need a fire truck," he said.

The tankers are used to shuttle water to fire scenes so it can be pumped on fires. With only three fire hydrants within their 14 square mile coverage area, the Caw Caw volunteer firefighters depend on them.

The department responds to between 12 and 13 structure fires a year. But it also provides service on Interstate 26 when there's a wreck and assistance to other communities in Calhoun, Orangeburg and Lexington counties. All told, the firefighters probably run about 300 calls a year.

The department will rely on the help of neighboring fire stations while it tries to get the mess straightened out.

Firefighter Casey Crider is worried that the department won't be able to build a new substation if it has to replace the tanker. Stabler estimates it could cost $70,000 for the department just to buy a used tanker to replace the stolen one.

The theft "is definitely not going to help us in no kind of way," Crider said.

And it also hurts for firefighters who've been building the department since 1984 with funds raised at turkey shoots, raffles and barbecue suppers.

"This is a community project and members of the fire stations and the community worked hard to collect money for it," Fire Chief Nick Stabler said.

Randy Stabler says he hopes someone in the community knows who stole the tankers.

"I'd love to get my hands on them," he said. "It's senseless."

Anyone with any information about the missing tanker should call the sheriff's office at 803-874-2741.

T&D City Editor Gene Crider can be reached by e-mail at gcrider@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5570. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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