WINNING NARRATIVE 2005

Pumper/Tanker

PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND BUDGET

The XXX Fire Department is located in XXX, Minnesota, about 150 miles northwest of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The XXX primary response area consists of residential homes, a small business sector, farming operations, and wild lands and open areas. The XXX Fire and Rescue Department serves an area of more than 71 square miles. According to the 2000 census, the department serves a population of 998 people living in 517 households.

After a risk analysis, the XXX Fire Department requests $150,925 in funding for the purchase of a new pumper/tanker. The vehicle will include 2,000 gallon on-board water carrying capacity. A 2,100 gallon steel-frame nylon portable tank and carrier will be part of the vehicle. The 750 GPM pump will be NFPA compliant. The truck/chassis selected is a Freightliner. The vehicle will be diesel powered with a Caterpillar 372 diesel engine, which will provide longevity over similar gas models. The truck will be equipped with a light bar consisting of warning lights, siren, and speaker. This unit will be fully equipped and NFPA 1901 compliant. The following table is a breakout of the vehicle budget:

Pump = $18,000
Apparatus & Equipment = 72,000
Chassis = 60,000
Grant writing fees = 925
Total Cost = $150,925

This vehicle will serve as the first line pumper for our department. It will replace a Minnesota Department of Transportation and NFPA non-compliant 55-year old pumper that has reached the end of its useful life. This is a long range project, as we anticipate the new vehicle will have a service life approaching 25-30 years. As this narrative will explain, this new unit is planned as a multi-use vehicle, serving many roles in our department, although fire suppression and carrying fire fighting apparatus and firefighters will be its primary purpose. Keeping in mind the equipment is only as good as the personnel operating it, we propose to continue driver/operator training for appropriate personnel in 2005. We feel this purchase is consistent with the established priorities of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program.

Understanding that vehicles are the most expensive items in the fire hall, each of the local units of government have been building a reserve of funds. These communities have agreed to provide $30,185 toward the cost of this project, which is 20% of the total. The local governments will make these funds available when the grant is awarded. This vehicle will be on automatic response to all departments in our mutual aid group.

Total Project Cost = $150,925
Additional Match = $22, 639
5% required Local Match = $7,546
AFGP Federal Share = $120,740

We have completed a risk assessment of our primary response area. This assessment included an analysis of the number of households, and general distances from our station. We factored in time-of-response calculations, showing that our greatest risk is our ability to get to the scene in time to make a difference toward saving lives and structures. The gap between our current ability to fight fires and the capabilities we need will be fully addressed by replacing our old, second line vehicle. All together, our new pumper will allow us to get our firefighting vehicles to the scene much faster and more dependably than is currently the case.

FINANCIAL NEED

Our principal city is XXX, MN. The City’s cash on hand on 12/31/04 is presented below:

General Fund – $57,567
Water Fund – 8,267
Sewer Fund – 1,576
Garbage Fund – (503)
Fire Dept. Fund – 55,959
Reserves – 4,111
TOTAL – $126,977

The city has little cash on hand in all accounts, except for the balance we have been building in the Fire Department fund. Of that amount, our fire department will commit $30,165 toward this vehicle. The balance will go toward necessary equipment for the vehicle. As can be seen from the City financial information presented above, we cannot afford this project without help from AFG program. The City has only $4,111 in reserves, which must be preserved in order to meet any emergencies.

The fire department’s 2005 budget is broken into several categories, including:

Fire Hall – $3,880
Equipment – 6,900
Clothing – 3,500
Insurance – 4,000
Other – 2,810
Total – $21,090

As this shows, our department is not financially strong. Total expenditures amount to about $20,000 in a typical year. The City of XXX and the townships in our primary response area already support us in strong fashion, having built a sizeable balance for vehicle purchase. But we cannot wait any longer to purchase this pumper. Our current backup vehicle is too problematic and our local need is too great.

The cities of XXX and XXX are very low income cities. A recent survey of income for this area (done by an area nonprofit agency funded by USDA Rural Development Agency) found that the median household income (MHI) is only $22,145. This compares to Minnesota’s state median household income of $47,111; our local MHI is only 47% of the state average.

COST/BENEFIT

We lack the local tools and resources necessary to protect the health and safety of our firefighters and the general public within our response area. One example of the health and safety benefit of this new pumper has to do with the portable drop tank. With our current pumper, several of our firefighters must manually struggle with our drop tank, in order to get it set up. There is constant fear of injury with this bulky, heavy tank. On the new pumper, the portable tank setup with be handled mechanically, without lifting requirements we currently experience. This alone provides relief to a continual health and safety issue.

Our current backup pumper, a 1950 Ford with a Luverne body, has a severely leaking tank, which has rusted through in many places. Patches to the steel tank cannot be welded in place because of the condition of the steel. Thus, we don’t even keep water in the pumper’s tank, because the fire hall would be flooded in a short period of time. In addition, this slows the response time for our department, because the tank must be filled before the vehicle can leave the station. The vehicle has 122,000 miles, and our fire fighters consider the vehicle to be barely functional. Its top speed is 40 mph. It is not compliant with NFPA 1901 standards.

The age of our old pumper (1950 model) makes interoperability with neighboring fire departments difficult. They cannot depend on our department’s second line vehicle: Will it start? How long will it take to fill the tank before it can roll? Will there be a breakdown on the way to the fire scene? Although we do our best, those neighboring departments cannot depend on us as well. These problems with our department’s second line pumper indicate a gap between what we need for effective firefighting, and the vehicles that we currently have.

The nearby city of XXX (5 miles away, but within our primary response area) has no municipal water supply; thus, firefighting there depends on the water that we can haul to any potential fire, and the speed at which we can get to the scene. After an analysis of the fire risks versus the speed of our response with current equipment, we feel the capacity and capability of a new vehicle will gain us ½ hour of time in fighting fires in that community. The importance of this response time risk was no better identified when we fought a structural fire on New Years Day 2004 in XXX. Getting our equipment to the scene was a critical problem for us.

Other rural areas within our large primary response territory were analyzed for risk as well. Perhaps 25 percent of our primary area is further away than the City of XXX, all of it rural. The size of this first response area represents our greatest risk. It is 8 miles to north end of our area, and 7 miles to the south. Our risk analysis involved calculating the time to reach those areas at 40 miles per hour versus the time needed 70 mph. Even our 1979 pumper, which will become our backup, isn’t completely reliable. It’s 1,100 gallon water carrying capacity is an improvement, however, and this vehicle can manage a road speed that will allow improved response as noted earlier in this section. We are convinced there will be a considerably improved response time with a new frontline pumper, and our current first line vehicle moving to backup. Simply put, a new vehicle will give us more rapid response.

The XXX Fire Department protects 6 miles of the Canadian Pacific Rail main line. This railroad carries about 13,000 trains per year, containing important foodstuffs, containerized cargo, and hazardous materials. An accident along this important transportation line would cause catastrophic disruption for our area and the region. Chemical spills or other hazardous materials from a train derailment would be a severe emergency for the residents of our primary response area. There are several grain elevators in the communities we serve, which contain potentially explosive grain dust. A chemical fertilizer plant in XXX provides another challenge to our department.

There are new homes within the area, as well. Our area is a ‘bedroom’ community to the neighboring regional center of XXX, MN – many families prefer to live here while commuting to XXX. This means that there has been some housing growth. For example, there is a new 8 to 10 home development being opened up here this year. That translates into more structures in our primary response area. With new home prices what they are, we feel that saving even one home will equal the cost of this new vehicle. That is a strong cost-to-benefit ratio.

This new pumper will be cost effective in that it will allow us ‘roll and go’ firefighting. This allows us to run the pump while the vehicle is moving, such as when fighting vegetation fires in road ditches. Our second line pumper has no such capability, as we must be stopped to run the pump.

The new vehicle will be equipped with foam pump and 20 gallon capacity, thus increasing the department’s overall ability. There are other safety issues for our firefighters. For example, the new vehicle will have air brakes, which is an improvement over the 1950 vehicle that will be retired. Its tires will be full sized, and will utilize belted steel and radial design, which are an improvement over the material that our current 1950 vehicle has. Even simple items such as seat belts are a vastly superior design in the proposed new vehicle. There are numerous safety compliance and OSHA issues that will be rectified through this grant application purchase.

We know our 41 calls are relatively low, compared to a big city department. It is not indicative of normal years for us. 2004 was a wet year, reducing the number of vegetation fires we were called to. However, we feel that we can spread the benefit of Assistance to Firefighter Grant dollars to just as many people on a per capita basis. Over the life of this vehicle, we think it will cost about $6 per person to provide the fire protection that this new pumper will give us. This means that our low call volume is matched by a low cost per person for fire fighting preparedness.

Our new pumper will allow the department to better respond to ALL hazards: tornados, earthquakes, CBRNE, etc. It will have capabilities far beyond our current equipment. We also hope to retire our second line tanker (1974 Chevrolet), which is becoming more and more difficult to operate for mechanical reasons. This new pumper will give us good water carrying capacity, and our current vehicle will be used as a backup tanker.

Nearly half of our firefighters have commercial driver’s licenses, with endorsement for driving heavy vehicles such as our tankers and pumpers. As such, they have had training for vehicle operations. Also, we have a strong training regimen for our members. We train our firefighters 8-10 times per year in operational techniques for pumper operations, so that we can be sure that we can competently utilize this new pumper.

STATEMENT OF EFFECT

During the next several years, we will measure our department’s response times with the pumpers to see if it improves as a result of this grant. We are convinced that this operational outcome will improve, and make this purchase worthwhile.

Safety for the local civilian population is a strong outcome for us if this grant is approved. More than 37% of the residents in our primary response area are either children under age 14 or seniors 65 years of age and older. These groups are at especially great risk when fires occur. The speed of our response is critical to protecting these vulnerable groups. With the purchase of this new pumper, we will be well positioned to provide excellent firefighting capabilities.

Our ability to work with neighboring departments will be measurably stronger. When we meet with those departments, we routinely talk about how we will handle mutual aid firefighting. At present, our second line pumper makes coordination planning difficult, since our unit is so undependable. Our inability to operate as a full member of the mutual aid team is a drawback to all the fire departments in our mutual aid group. With a new vehicle, interoperability issues will be solved.