Updated January
20, 2009
Arab Fire
and Rescue will be getting some much needed
equipment thanks to a grant from the Federal
Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program
according to U.S. Senator Richard Shelby and
U.S. Representative Robert Aderholt.
The grant application was formally approved
last week. The public announcement of
the funding was made Friday afternoon in a
press release from Senator Shelby's office.
Shelby is a senior member of the Senate
Appropriations Committee. The grant,
totaling $153,060 will help to fund three
major projects for the department. The
grant is contingent on a 5% match of funds
by the City of Arab. The City will
have to contribute approximately $7,600.
Arab Fire Chief
Ricky Phillips said the grant will be used
to purchase and/or upgrade much needed
equipment. The grant includes $50,250
to purchase new personal protection
equipment (turnout gear) for all of the
firefighters. The gear will include
fire resistant coats, pants, boots, helmet,
gloves, safety vest, suspenders and Nomex
hoods. The hoods look similar to ski masks
and provide two layers of Nomex fabric
protection to the area left vulnerable
between the coats and helmets. Much of
the current turnout gear has passed the
expiration date. Phillips said the new
personal protection gear will make the
firefighters much safer when fighting fires.
Some $74,500 dollars is
designated to install an air filtration
system to filter dirty air from the engine
bay. The filtration system will be
used to remove exhaust pollution from the
bay area and to prevent the polluted air
from being drafted into the E-911 dispatch
offices located in the basement of the fire
station building. Phillips said that
each time the rolling stock of the
department is started in the engine bay, the
fumes become a problem. The engine bay
currently houses nine pieces of equipment
that must be started at least once per day
and run until the engine reaches a normal
operating temperature. In addition to
the daily warm-up, several of the trucks are
started each time the department receives
and responds to an emergency call.
Pollution from the diesel and gasoline
exhaust fumes can cause a build up of carbon
monoxide as well as certain cancer causing
chemicals.
In addition to filtering the
air on a set cycle of several times per
hour, the system will automatically trigger
any time a vehicle leaves or returns to the
building. A laser beam across all of
the bay door openings will activate the
system each time a vehicle breaks the beam.
The filtration system will also allow the
firefighters to work with other exhaust
producing equipment in the bay area without
having to vent the bay doors. In
addition to the health and safety benefits,
the system should help quite a bit with
utility costs during the winter months
according to Phillips. "Each morning
during the warm-up procedure the bay doors
have to be vented about 18" in order to
provide adequate ventilation. The open
doors suck the heated air out along with the
pollution."
The filtration system will
look similar to heating and air conditioning
units and will actually filter and return
the air to the building instead of venting
it to the outside.
The grant provides $37,000 to
purchase two new patient physiology monitors
for the department's ambulances. The
monitors include a heart monitor,
defibrillator, and is capable of performing
a 12 lead EKG as well as monitoring the
patient blood pressure and oxygen levels.
Phillips said one of the
current monitoring units was purchased from
the government surplus program.
Phillips also said the timing of the grant
may be helpful in getting better pricing for
the monitors as well as 10 AED units that
the department plans to purchase. The
purchase of the AED units was part of a
fundraising event that the department held
in October with the fire department's
"haunted house" project. "We hope that
bidding all of the equipment at the same
time will result in better pricing."
Phillips said.
Phillips praised the work of
Mike Watson who wrote the grant application
along with the help of several other members
of the department, and the assistance
provided by Administrative Assistant Becky
Hawkins. "We also want to especially
thank Senator Shelby and Representative
Aderholt for working to approve our grant
request." Phillips added.
