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County Fire Department gets grant

November 29, 2007|Mike Wynn

U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Ky., visited firefighters at the Clark County Fire Department on Wednesday after the department received a federal grant to purchase special firefighting suits and rescue rope equipment.

The department received $32,768 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency through the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. The program was started in 2000, but was nearly cut until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"It's a project that is extremely important to the people of Clark County, and one that I believe that if people actually need this kind of help from the fire department, they will have it ready and available here," Chandler said.

He commended local officials and firefighters for their work on the grant applications.

"It goes to protect the citizens of this county, and that is what their tax dollars are for - to try to protect them when they have a problem," he added.

The grant, coupled with a 5 percent match from the fire department, will pay for wild land protective suits, which are lighter and cooler than the normal fire-fighting suits and are used during grass or brush fires.

"If it's 100 degrees in the middle of August, and you are going up a mountain on a brush fire, you don't really want to have insulated clothes on," said Maj. Ernest Barnes, who applied for the grant with Battalion Chief Billy Jones.

Department officials are also going to purchase rescue rope that is often necessary for rescues in industrial fires or confined spaces. Firefighters have already received training on the ropes, Barnes said.

Barnes explained that this is the first time Clark County has received an Assistance to Firefighters grant, which they applied for in April.

He said the County Judge-Executive's Office, the County Treasurer's Office, the County Road Department and the GIS Office all played a role in supplying information in the application. Chandler wrote a letter off support for the grant, Barnes added.

"We're real pleased that we got it. It's stuff we need, and when you look at $32,000 with a department like us, that's not going to be something we have room for in our budget, ever," Barnes said. "This is the only way we are ever going to get it, putting in for grants."

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