Six local fire departments will get a collective $800,000 worth of new equipment, thanks to a federal grant. They were awarded a FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grant for the purchase of 125 new air packs, plus a spare bottle for each, according to Walkerton Assistant Fire Chief Jeff Hamilton.
“These packs, normally, without a grant, are about $7,500 apiece,” Hamilton says. “With buying them as the big group that we’re doing it in with this grant, the price went down to $6,500. So each department’s actually going to pay like $350 per pack, and then there’s some other things on top of that. So $500 a pack is a lot cheaper than the $7,500 that it should’ve cost us.”
The Walkerton Volunteer Fire Department coordinated the grant application, with the equipment to be shared with the Knox, Hamlet, Koontz Lake, Polk Township, and Liberty Township fire departments. Hamilton says the grant will require a five-percent local match.
At the Hamlet-Davis Township Volunteer Fire Department, that will amount to about $7,000, which is expected to be split evenly between the town and the township. Town council president and volunteer firefighter Dave Kesvormas says it’s a big deal. “$3,500 between the two of us, between the township and the town, that’s a steal,” he told the rest of the council last month. “So I won’t complain a bit about it, and it’s getting all new stuff.”
Kesvormas says the town will have to find the match money out of this year’s budget.
