Round 1 FEMA Grant awarded for 2010

On Friday, November 26th, 2010 the Christiana Fire Company received notification from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that we were selected to receive another Federal Grant under the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program.

The grant, in the amount of $23,800, will allow the Fire Company to purchase new fire hose for water supply and fire suppression.

Our current five inch supply hose is over 23 years old, our two and half inch attack hose is 21 years of age, and current three inch supply hose was purchased sixteen years ago. The National Fire Protection Association, the world's leading advocate of fire prevention and an authoritative source on public safety, recommends that fire departments should "give careful consideration to a 10-year maximum service life under normal operating conditions."

With the age of this equipment being well beyond the expected life span, it became apparent that we needed to devise a solution to this problem before a hose line broke, ruptured, or injured someone.

Thankfully now, with the assistance of this grant, we can alleviate this problem.

The Christiana Fire Company applied for this grant in May, 2010 with the aid of John Sly, and anxiously awaited this notification.

This grant will help us gain another basic tool to assist us in doing our jobs that we previously could not have done without this Federal Assistance.

The Fire Company also has to provide a 5% matching funds portion of the grant, which is $1,190. We will then receive a Federal Share of $22,610.

The Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program began in 2001 and we have applied for assistance each year. This is the third time we have received an award in that time, the first being a grant in the amount of $23.000 in 2004 to help purchase a generator for our Pumper/Tanker, a second grant awarded in 2009 in the amount of $21,500 to purchase ten sets of new firefighting turnout gear to outfit our active firefighters, and now again in 2010 to purchase new five inch hose, three inch hose and two and half inch attack lines.

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security received 16,232 applications for assistance in this grant program. The total amount requested was more than 2.5 billion dollars, however only $390 million is available in the program. Due to the lack of funding for each application, the awards are selected by a competitive award process. Approximately 25%, or roughly 4,000 applications out of the 16,232 received will receive funding assistance. The remainder will be denied for this year. We are fortunate enough to be one of those selected for an award.

The Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program is administered by the department's Directorate for Preparedness through its Office of Grants and Training in cooperation with the United States Fire Administration, also a division of the Preparedness Directorate.

We would like to thank all those involved in this program for the assistance we are provided with this grant.