The Windham Fire-Rescue Department has purchased a cargo van for traffic control, following a $20,000 donation from the political candidate and former Rent-A-Husband proprietor Kaile Warren.

According to Windham Fire-Rescue Chief Brent Libby, the department’s 10-person volunteer fire-police division will use the 2012, 3?4-ton Ford E250 to travel to emergency scenes.

“They are the ones that direct traffic at emergency scenes, so they work with the fire department and the police department,” Libby said. “Currently they’ve had to use their own vehicles, their own gas, to sit there for hours if the road’s closed.”

The van fits two people, and can transport cones and barricades, as well, Libby said.

“I think it will improve service,” Libby said. “When you’re driving down the road, if you see a marked department official you know that something is going on. It lends itself toward making it safer for them to operate in the roadway.”

Warren is a former Windham town councilor as well as the former proprietor of the national handyman company Rent-a-Husband. In November, state Sen. Bill Diamond defeated Warren in the race for the District 26 seat.

Warren said he approached former Fire Chief Charlie Hammond about the donation last June, before he entered the race for the Senate seat in the wake of Republican candidate Toby Pennels’ death.

“It had nothing to do with the campaign,” Warren said. “I had made this decision months before Toby Pennels passed away.”

Warren said he made the donation on Nov. 13 and the Windham Town Council formally accepted the donation in December.

“Typically when people gift they look at private enterprise, or if they’re looking at a town, they generally gift real estate,” Warren said. “I really looked at, ‘How can I gift something that will improve the overall operating efficiency of the town?’”

Warren became the subject of national headlines when the Maine Attorney General’s Office slapped him with a criminal indictment in 2009, following complaints from half a dozen irate Rent-A-Husband promissory note holders that Warren was not paying them back. It was the beginning of a four-year legal imbroglio that finally came to an end in March when the attorney general, who had dropped the criminal charges in 2011, dismissed subsequent civil action against him.

Under the terms of a consent judgment, Warren transferred just under $2 million to the state to distribute to his investors. Warren also reached a confidential settlement with Ace Hardware and two law firms, Preti Flaherty and Marcus Clegg & Mistretta, that had drafted investment contracts and agreements for him.

Warren declined to detail the size of the settlement. Warren said the $20,000 donation, which he made with his partner Donna Leith, came from his “personal wealth.”

Libby said the donation was unusually large.

“We often get donations from people sporadically throughout the year but usually a donation of this amount is very much appreciated but not necessarily common,” he said.