A $52,858 U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant has been awarded to a local fire department in the Tenth Congressional District.
The grant will go to the Fairview Volunteer Fire Department in Buncombe County, and comes in the sixteenth round of the 2016 fiscal year Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG), which aims to help firefighters and first responders throughout the country. Local departments applied for the grants, and the program is administered by the Grant Programs Directorate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in cooperation with the U.S. Fire Administration.
According to Fairview Fire Chief Scott Jones, the grant funds will purchase new physical fitness equipment for all three of their fire stations.
“Heart attacks are one of the leading causes of firefighter deaths and the fire service is placing a premium on fitness and readiness,” said Congressman McHenry. “Fairview has been the beneficiary of several AFG Grants and I applaud them on another successful grant to enhance the health and safety of their personnel.”
A panel of fire experts at DHS awards AFG grants through a competitive review process. Congressman McHenry hosts workshops for 10th District EMS and fire departments to help guide personnel through the process and give them an inside view of what the committee looks for. The workshops are taught by Cherryville Fire Chief Jeff Cash and Skyland Fire Department Assistant Chief Ryan Cole, both nationally recognized experts in their fields and former member of DHS’s AFG review committee. Since Congressman McHenry and Chiefs Cash and Cole began the program, 10th District EMS and fire departments have consistently won more grants than departments in most of North Carolina’s other Congressional Districts.
Fairview is one of four 10th District departments to receive AFG funding thus far during the 2016 cycle with a total of $372,336 in AFG funds having been awarded among those departments. Two of the four 10 th District departments to receive funding are in Buncombe County.
Grants will continue to be announced in rounds weekly through the coming months.