Cheney Fire Department receives $210,000 FEMA grant

By DAVID TELLER

Staff Reporter

Though it's not through traditional means, the Cheney Fire Department will get two more firefighters.

The expanded fire department comes via a $210,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant. Lt. Ken Johnson applied for the grant. The grant is open yearly to applicants, but once it is awarded, Cheney Fire Chief Mike Winters said, it is a “once in a lifetime” opportunity.

He hopes he will hire two level-one firefighters by April.

The SAFER grant is distributed over a four-year period. A stipulation is that the benefiting city must provide increasing matching funds. For each year the grant amount is disbursed, grant funding decreases and the amount of city funds increases. Winters said the first year, his department will receive $76,000, and the city will contribute $70,000.

The city budgeted for its contribution to the fund last year, so the funds are already available.

Winters said the qualifying criteria for the city receiving the grant is meeting federal standards of staffing required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He described it as the two-in/two-out rule.

If there are two firefighters that are in a structure that is burning, OSHA mandates there be two other firefighters able to perform the rescue of a downed firefighter.

With only two full-time firefighters on shift at a time, meeting that regulation is very difficult.

Winters said having one morefirefighter per shift, including the two resident firefighters is three available firefighters. Adding himself as a fourth is meeting the OSHA requirement.

According to the FEMA website, the grant was created to provide funding directly to fire departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations in order to help them increase the number of trained, “front-line” firefighters available in their communities.

Specifically, SAFER funds should assist local fire departments to increase their staffing and deployment capabilities in order to respond to emergencies whenever they may occur.

“Anytime we can get federal regulations to help us, that's a good thing,” Winters said.

The grant to the city comes when call volume to the Cheney Fire Department continues to increase.

So far this year, the Fire Department has received 233 calls, placing them ahead of last year's pace by 22. A majority of the calls are medical emergencies. Winters said medical emergency accounts for 70 to 80 percent of call volume for any fire department throughout the country.

“We're no different,” he said. Winters added the yearly average for his department is 1,323 calls.

With the emphasis on smoke detectors and fire alarms, commercial fires have declined tremendously. Winters said residential fires are what kills the most people and that is what most of the fire calls in Cheney are.

“Getting firefighters to be able to do the rescue and do it in a safe manner, according to OSHA; that was our thrust on this whole grant process,” he said.

Winters cannot recall the last fire-related fatality in Cheney. He said the department received a life safety award for their exemplary record. He added last year there were situations that could have been fatalities.

“Had the situation not worked out as it did, there would have been two fatalities,” he said.

David Teller can be reached at [email protected]