Grant funds help firefighter fitness

The Hot Springs Fire Department has been awarded a federal grant to improve the physical fitness of its firefighters and is hopeful for receipt of another that will benefit their respiratory health.

The Hot Springs Board of Directors adopted resolutions earlier this month allowing the department to accept a grant to purchase new exercise equipment and apply for another to help ventilate the apparatus bays of the department’s five stations.

The department has been authorized to accept a Federal Emergency Management Agency Assistance to Firefighters Health and Wellness Grant of up to $28,000 for equipment to outfit the Central Station’s weight room. Fire Chief Ed Davis said bids are about to be let for the equipment, which will include a rowing machine, two elliptical machines, a stair climber, free weights, bench and multi-rack system.

Firefighters have to pass an annual physical exam and be able to maneuver in confined spaces while wearing as much as 70 pounds of gear. Davis told the board the

current gym equipment is starting to show its age after being donated by the YMCA many years ago.

“We’re going to be replacing that equipment with equipment that’s much more capable,” he said. “It will give the firefighters a little more of a workout.”

The Assistance to Firefighters Grant of up to $200,000 the department has been authorized to apply for would equip each of its stations with a point-of-capture exhaust system. The system channels fire truck exhaust to a ventilation stack, where it’s discharged from the station rather than lingering inside the apparatus bay.

It attaches directly to the truck’s exhaust system and automatically detaches when the truck moves.

“It will evacuate particulates that come from vehicle exhaust,” Davis said. “There’s a lot of production of carcinogens that come out of a vehicle’s exhaust. Firefighters are exposed to enough things on the fire grounds that increase the risk of cancer. We don’t want vehicle exhaust to compound that.

‘It will add about 5 percent to our electric bill each month, but it will be money well spent.”

Davis said exhaust systems at two stations can’t meet heightened federal standards for particulate concentration, but the point-of-capture technology would bring them into compliance. According to information presented to the board, cancer diagnosis and deaths among firefighters are 9 percent and 14 percent higher when compared to national rates.

Money the state remits to fire departments from taxes collected on home insurance premiums will be used to fund matches for both grants.