Grant applications now open for combating wildfires
26 February 2023
Published by: https://www.northcentralpa.com
USA – Harrisburg, Pa. — Fire companies in rural areas are encouraged to apply for grant funding to help control wildfires. Volunteer fire companies often join the Bureau of Forestry crews to battle wildfires, and this set of grants exists to equip and train those firefighters.
To be eligible, a fire company must be in a rural area or community with fewer than 10,000 residents. The aid must be used for training and equipment directly related to fighting brush and forest fires. Grant recipients will be selected based on vulnerability and adequacy of existing fire protection.
Applications for these grants can only be submitted through DCNR’s grant website. Applications must be submitted by 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 11. Additional information about the volunteer Fire Assistance grants is available here.
“We are pleased to the support the men and women who volunteer with the fire companies that serve our rural areas and communities across Pennsylvania with these grants,” Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn said. “Having well-equipped and highly trained wildland firefighters is critical to protecting the commonwealth’s natural resources and we encourage eligible fire companies to apply for this grant round.”
Acting State Fire Commissioner Thomas Cook noted volunteer fire companies’ service to communities close to home.
“Grants programs like these are vital financial lifelines for the volunteer fire companies that keep our communities safe, and they fund increasingly necessary training and equipment that firefighters would otherwise go without,” Cook said. “Certainly, the last few years have underscored that the ability to tackle wildfires is a key competency fire departments will need to focus on going forward.”
Priority will be placed on projects that include the purchase of wildfire suppression equipment and protective clothing. Grants also may be used for purchasing mobile or portable radios, installing dry hydrants, wildfire prevention and mitigation work, training wildfire fighters, or converting and maintaining federal excess vehicles provided to them by the department.
Local firefighting forces may receive grants up to $12,500. Aid is granted on a cost-share basis. Grants for any project during a fiscal year cannot exceed 50 percent of the actual expenditures of local, public, and private nonprofit organizations in the agreement.
In 2022, nearly $763,000 was awarded to 122 volunteer fire companies serving rural areas and communities where forest and brush fires are common. The grant program, offered through DCNR and paid through federal grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, has awarded more than $13 million since it began in 1982.
