GEORGETOWN, Conn. — A video created by the Georgetown (Conn.) Volunteer Fire Department detailing the cost of firefighting equipment and gear has gone viral.

The Wilton Bulletin reported the video, which shows residents guessing the cost of equipment, has been viewed more than 125,000 times. Hal Gourad, the Georgetown Fire Department financial secretary and creator of the video, said it has a message that most volunteer fire departments can relate to.

“I’ve been called by fire departments around the country to ask if they can use it for their own recruitment purposes," Gourad said. “It's starting to go viral.”

The sudden success comes at the perfect time for the fire department, which is in need of some extra funds and just released a satirical calendar mocking the typical sexy firefighter calendar.

“We have a big shortage in our budget this year. It turned out we needed money for new boots,” Gourad said. “A couple years ago, my wife mentioned that we should think about doing a calendar, and I said, ‘Come on, we don’t have the bodies for that. We’re not the FDNY. They have 4,000 firefighters. They can basically pull models out of that.’”

The department's need for new equipment forced them to come up with creative fundraising methods.

“My wife had said, ‘Well, you can do a satirical calendar,'” Gourad said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. I suggested it to the guys. They saw the gap in the budget, that we needed to raise money for the boots, and they said 'Yeah, let’s do it.'”

With the help of a local photographer, the firefighters put together a series of humorous images for the calendar.

“This was the best project I’ve worked on in my fifteen years of working as a photographer,” photographer Nina Pomeroy said. “I laughed. I had a great time. The guys were so much fun to work with.”

As for the video, Gourad said it took him and a cameraman only 10 minutes to film it.

Watch, and share, the video below.

								To Kolb