Grants Available To Fire Companies

At a press conference in Newtown Monday, US Congressman Jim Maloney announced a new federal grant designed to provide funding to local volunteer fire companies for training and equipment.

Entitled the FIRE program, this direct grant will provide a total of $100 million to fire companies nationwide. Mr Maloney, who co-authored the bill, compared FIRE to the community policing programs in that the town and/or departments would need to apply for the grant.

“We have some concerns that the fire departments in local communities are the first responders no matter what the source of the problem is. We want to make sure our fire departments are properly equipped and properly trained from a national defense point of view,” Mr Maloney said.

The FIRE program will reimburse volunteer departments up to 90 percent of the costs of equipment and training that goes into a system of first response. Equipment could be anything from new trucks and communication systems to fire fighting apparatus and imaging systems.

The program was passed by Congress in December and will be administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“The early bird catches the worm and I wanted to make sure that Newtown was aware that this grant opportunity exists,” said Mr Maloney, whose office in Washington recently sent out letters explaining the new program to all those volunteer fire companies in Connecticut’s Fifth District.