Chester firefighters get $2.5M boost for staff and training
CHESTER » The city Bureau of Fire announced a slate of secured grants recently in conjunction with Fire Prevention Week.
A trifecta of federal grants and a single local one bring the total to over $2,595,000 to add eight additional firefighters to the department, benefit training and health screenings, and purchase new combination smoke/carbon monoxide detectors for city residents. The funds come as the department recently acquired a new anti-viral spraying device to combat COVID-19 spread with a federal Community Development Block Grant secured by the city over the summer.
“We were three for three federal grants, that’s a hat trick,” Fire Commission William C. Rigby IV told the Times, noting a fire prevention grant was one of two received in Pennsylvania this year.
The Fire Prevention and Safety grant, administered through FEMA, accounted for $144,250 of the total. Funds will be used to purchase combination smoke/ carbon monoxide detectors with a 10-year life span requiring no battery change, according to a department release. The purchase includes detectors designed for the hard of hearing which attaches to beds and signal through vibrations.
While the department cannot install the detectors in homes due to COVID-19 restrictions, they are available for pickup at fire headquarters, 15thStreet and Providence Avenue, with instructional guides on how to install the devices, Rigby said. Interested residents should call headquarters at 610-447-7765 and ask to speak with the fire prevention unit.
The department’s largest federal grant amounts to $2,354,928 through the Staffing For Adequate Fire And Emergency Response program. The grant, fully funded through the federal government with no local matching, provides for hiring eight additional firefighters to join the department’s current 54 and covers their first three years of employment, Rigby said. According to a department release, the eight new hires will be trained both firefighting as well as other emergency response including medical incidents, vehicle rescue and other specialized rescues.
Rounding out the trifecta is an Assistance to Firefighters Grant for $95,000 to address health and wellness. In part, the grant will fund medical exams to screen for cancers and heart disease, according to the release. “This gives us an opportunity to get a snapshot of where the department is at – maybe check something early and save someone’s life,” Rigby said. The balance of the grant will purchase exercise equipment for the city’s two firehouses and fitness counseling.
The department’s monthly training expense will be reduced through a $1,500 grant from the Wawa Foundation.
The Bureau of Fire and city Office of Emergency Management – also overseen by Rigby – put prior Community Development Block Grant federal funding to use in acquiring SteraMist Surface Unit from TOMITM Environmental Solutions to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus in city buildings and vehicles. The acquisitions will allow the two city agencies to assume sanitizing duties for the city and eliminate the need for third-partycontractorscurrently handling the task.
According to a department release, the virus-killing molecules dispensed by the device measure between 0.05 to 3 microns, allowing for maximum penetration of surfaces to come in contact with the 0.05 to 0.14-micron coronavirus. Out
of the suburban Philadelphia counties, Rigby estimated two or three departments in Montgomery County have acquired similar technology and one in Bucks County, believing this to be the first in Delaware County.
Members of the Bureau of Fire’s Hazardous Material team are now completing training on the SteraMist unit.
“We’re hoping to put it in use (for regular rotations) for the first time by next week, if not (sooner),” Rigby said. In the immediate future, it will be in use at city offices along with police, fire and municipal vehicles, and police cell blocks .“This tool’s going to help us down the road, postCOV ID,” R igby said. “It’ll help with biocleaning and after response to scenes where people need to be decontaminated. We look forward to helping our neighbors that assist us, now that we have this tool ,” he said.