LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A group of local firefighters is preparing for an important holiday run, a mission that requires weeks of planning.
This Christmas season, Rudolph, Prancer and Vixen will be making the rounds on the front of a Zoneton fire truck.
Zoneton firefighters have spent the last two weeks decorating one of the department's trucks for the holiday mission.
"We are getting ready for our Santa Detail, which takes place through the whole month of December," said Sgt. Dustin Headley with the Zoneton Fire Protection District. "This year, we added some deer on the front of the truck."
Headley, a 14-year veteran of the department, has made thousands of runs, and they're all treated with a sense of urgency.
"One minute, you can be taking care of somebody's grandmother," he said. "And the next minute, you can be saving somebody's business. So all calls are important."
That includes the calls they'll make in December. They'll make the runs on board a fire truck they've spent a lot of downtime decorating.
"Once you get out in the community and you see the smiles on kids faces, you see the smiles on all the families faces, it makes it 100% worth while," Headley said.
On at least nine days in December, the truck will be lit from top to bottom and transport Santa and Mrs. Claus to Bullitt County neighborhoods.
"We do have people in our community that plan their family event or Christmas on when Santa is going to come through their neighborhood," Zoneton Chief Rob Orkies said.
Orkies said most of the work is done in-house because they're all firefighters, but all bring different talents to the table.Â
"To run this truck, we use four different generators," he said. "We have electrical people that can do electrical work, pump people that can figure out the wattage we need. We have people in IT."
After thousands of man hours, firefighters expect to be finished sometime next week.
The truck is scheduled to hit the road on Dec. 5.
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