About/Contact Us

About the Owner: KEITH GAMMEL

  • Currently a Firefighter/Paramedic at the position of Aeriel Driver at Fort Smith fire department in Arkansas. 
  • Started in the fire service in 1997 as a Jr. firefighter at a small town VFD in Texas. 
  • Throughout my years in the Volunteer service, I have served in every position from Jr. firefighter to Fire chief. 
  • Served serval years as a certified USFS wildland firefighter, seasonal. Fighting wildfires all over the US from California to North Carolina.
  • Started my professional firefighter career in 2006 to current date. 
  • Started SOS fire equipment in 2019 in my home garage
  • 2020 Built a 30x40 shop to store inventory at my home. 
  • 2021 Leased a 4k sq ft building in Poteau, Ok. 
  • 2023 Purchased a commercial property in Wister, Ok. for our new home office. 

SOS fire equipment started several years ago when the owner Keith Gammel started noticing that some larger departments were selling their surplus equipment. As a Vol. fire chief and a career firefighter I knew what new equipment cost and that most used equipment still had serviceable life remaining. I started buying this equipment as my limited funds would allow and started reselling to departments that needed the equipment. Over time departments would contact me to have him look for specific equipment.

However, this all came to a halt in 2017 when my wife became ill, and we were running to hospitals for about 7-8 months. In Sept. of 2017 my wife passed away at 37yo. Having 3 kids to support I knew my times had been tough and it was going to get tougher for me and my family. We struggled for some time. 

One day an opportunity arose, and I took all my savings and purchased a large lot of used SCBA's from a dept in New Jersey. I drove up picked it up and drove back home. Once home I inventoried it, contacted a service tech to come test them all and started marketing them. In about 2-3 months I had it all sold. Feeling a sigh of relief, I started looking for more equipment. I did this for quite some time from out of my garage. I soon saw the need to build a shop. I built a 1200sq foot shop and filed all my business documents with the state. Doing all of this a single father, full time career firefighter and volunteer fire chief.

Soon I realized that there was only a certain amount of equipment that you can get on the surplus market. So, I started getting with vendors to get set up selling new equipment. This is a lot harder than it sounds!!! Most vendors won't give you the time of day if you're not having millions in sales a year. So, I got in where I could. 

We currently are still adding more vendors when the opportunity presents themselves. We are currently purchasing a larger facility to house our operations for the foreseeable future.

 

Thanks for visiting. If you have questions about a product or about anything for that matter. Feel free to call, text or email.

Come visit our physical location. 

SOS fire equipment

904 N. Magnolia Ave.

Wister, OK. 74966

 

Billing address:                         

SOS Fire Equipment, llc                       

P.o. Pox 185                                     

Howe, Ok. 74940                                   

(918) 984-0911                                   

 

Used equipment want list, let us know what your looking for. 

New customer account form.

 

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