Fire department wins highly competitive grant

Date: 2/9/2011

Feb. 9, 2011

By Katelyn Gendron

Assistant Editor

WEST SPRINGFIELD — The West Springfield Fire Department will soon be able to better ensure the safety of its personnel in the field thanks to a $63,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

More than $1.1 million was awarded Feb. 3 to eight municipalities across the state via the highly competitive FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG). West Springfield's funding will finance upgrades to the department's 25 self-contained breathing apparatuses, which include a locator system and portable monitoring equipment.

"This is a tremendous savings for the community. That's money that in these lean fiscal times would not be a priority [for the department's budget]," Deputy Fire Chief Daniel Culver, grant writer, said.

The upgrades, while very necessary to help locate trapped or distressed firefighters, would have most likely gone unfunded if not for the grant, he added.

"We do the best we can with what we have," Culver said of the department's limited resources.

The current system to detect trapped or distressed firefighters includes "an audible ear-piercing alarm" within in each self-contained breathing apparatus in addition to one thermal imaging camera, he explained.

"For the past several years we've been cutting and cutting and cutting equipment, supplies and maintenance repairs and those accounts are really the lowest they can go," Fire Chief William Flaherty said, noting that the FEMA grant is a huge help.

Flaherty and Culver credited former Fire Chief David Barkman, who retired last month, with the foresight to go after this grant money last year.

Andover, Bellingham, Manchester, Mendon, Provincetown, Sharon and Somerville fire departments also received portions of FEMA's $1.1 million AFG.

"State and local budgets are squeezed like never before and that makes every federal dollar even more critical," U.S. Sen. John Kerry said. "First responders put their lives on the line every time the alarm bell rings and it's immoral to ask them to do their jobs with anything less than the best training and safety equipment available."