Pa. fire, ambulance companies get $1M grant

By Jim Hook
Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania)

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. — Fifteen area fire and ambulance companies will split a $1 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security.

The money enables the companies to purchase new radios that will be compatible with updated emergency communications systems.

"This is really good news," said Randy O'Donnell, fire chief of West End Fire & Rescue Company of Shippensburg. "Without this grant our options for financial assistance would have been limited. This has relieved an incredible financial burden on our volunteers."

West End assembled grant requests from three counties into a single application for a grant from the Assistance to Fire Fighters Program. They had requested $1.7 million.

The volunteers must match the grant with $440,000 of local money.

Fannett-Metal Fire Company has been putting aside a little money each year, according to Fire Chief Sam Peterson. Fannett-Metal had asked for $120,000 of the grant.

"We still have to put up a lot of money," he said. "This helps out quite a bit."

For months fire and ambulance companies have been looking for ways to coordinate their efforts to pay for radios. They decided to give the Homeland Security grant a try, Peterson said.

"This was done on a regional basis," O'Donnell said. "We were able to get everybody together in two to three weeks. It shows that joint effort and regional ideas do work."

Franklin County is spending $5.5 million for a system that includes high-frequency transmission, nine towers across the county and a communications center in the Cumberland Valley Business Park. The system is to eliminate "dead zones" where emergency radios don't work. Fire and ambulance companies, police departments and municipalities must buy compatible radios. With the radios they will be able to talk directly to each other when coordinating a response to an emergency -- something they can't do today.

"If multiple departments respond to an event, they must be able to communicate with each other and tackle the emergency as a team," Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Hollidaysburg, stated Monday in his announcement of the grant award. "Interoperable communications equipment of the kind purchased through this grant will accomplish this, save lives and improve response times."

"The timing of this grant is also important," Shuster stated. "Local governments, like the people they represent, are tightening their budgets. The communications equipment these firefighters need is expensive and the fire companies can't buy it on their own. Instead of asking county government, these fire companies were able to pool their strengths and utilize this important federal grant program."

Local municipalities also have applied for Homeland Security money under a separate grant, O'Donnell said.

Some local fire companies previously received Homeland Security money for new radios. Franklin Fire Company received nearly $400,000 in 2007.

The county is expected to begin operating its system in early 2009, but will communicate on low- and high-frequencies until all first responders have new radios.

"There's no turn-on date for the new system," O'Donnell said. "We should be in good shape."

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