| On Friday, May 10th, 2013 the Fire Company received our fourth Federal Assistance to Firefighters Grant award from the Fiscal Year 2012 award cycle.
This award will go towards the purchase of portable radios to equip each and every firefighter and Chief Officer with such equipment in order for all personnel to be able to communicate with one another.
The grant was a Regional application and involved seven total fire stations in Chester County who will share in the funding. The grant, in the amount of $430,000 was issued through the Glen Moore Fire Company and is the largest award issued to a Pennsylvania fire department in this award cycle.
Firefighters from Glen Moore, Westwood, Cochranville, Modena, Wagontown, and Thorndale Fire Companies will each share in the funding. Westwood will receive a total of $106,000 to aid in the purchase of 53 portable radios.
We are extremely fortunate that the Commissioners of the County of Chester currently purchase the infrastructure and mobile radio equipment for our communications system. A specific allotment of portable radios is also provided to each Fire and EMS agency within the County, however there is not enough equipment for each firefighter to be provided with a radio. Now, with this grant, we can expand upon the equipment we receive and supplement additional radios to our firefighters.
The County is currently in the process of implementing a new radio system which is expected to go live in 2015. These new radios will be compatible with both the system in place today as well as the new communications system.
The cost of each radio is expected to be nearly $2,000. This grant will pay for 90% of that amount.
We would like to express our thanks to the Glen Moore Fire Company for acting as the host of this grant application and our peers who carefully sit and review each application for funding merit. Each year, nearly 15,000 applications are submitted and more than 12,000 of them are not funded. The Westwood Fire Company has been fortunate enough to receive 10 Federal grant awards and share in 2 others since the inception of the program in 2001.
In the FY2012 cycle, Westwood has received funding in the amount of $80,000 for the purchase of new Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, $165,250 for the purchase of a mobile driver training simulator, $44,500 for the purchase of EMS equipment, and now $106,000 for the purchase of portable radios.
A formal press release with the involvement of our Congressional officials will be forthcoming in the coming days through the Glen Moore Fire Company.
The Assistance to Firefighters Grants are administered by the Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency Management Agency in cooperation with the Department's United States Fire Administration. The grants are awarded on a competitive basis to the applicants that most closely address the program's priorities and demonstrate financial need. |
