Hard work and persistence paid off for the Oxford Fire Department as the agency was recently awarded a $187,000 federal grant to purchase 28 new airpacks and a compressed air filling station.
The money is coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Assistance to Firefighters Grant program. The federal share is $177,650 and the local match is $9,350 (or 5 percent).
‘We’ve been trying for these for nine years. We’ve never gotten a grant before,? said Fire Chief Pete Scholz.
The man who made it all possible is Fire Capt. Ron Jahlas.
‘Last year, the department sent me to a class to get some advanced training on grant writing,? he said. ‘I think that was helpful.?
Jahlas indicated he spent a lot of extra time finding and studying winning grant proposals, trying to figure out what the key components were.
FEMA also set him up with a tutor, which aided the application process.
On Thursday, the department ordered 28 new Self-contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) units and a new compressor station to fill them with filtered air.
The $40,000 filling station features a full-enclosed, explosion-proof chamber, so if one of the SCBA unit’s air cylinders (also called bottles) suffers a ‘catastrophic rupture,? the firefighters will stay safe, according to Jahlas.
This grant arrived just in time because the department’s 28 oldest airpacks were built in 1995. Jahlas said they’re still usable, but it’s better to replace them because they’re ‘outdated? in terms of safety standards and have been subjected to ‘a lot of wear and tear? over the years.
The packs? air bottles, however, are not still usable. They have a 15-year life-span and this is their last year.
‘We have to throw out all of our bottles and buy all new,? Jahlas said.
The captain noted the department needed this grant because the agency didn’t have the funds to replace everything under its current budget.
‘It’s a capital purchase that is necessary, but it was not afforded in our budget due to all the cuts and everything else,? Jahlas said. ‘We would have had to try and figure out where to come up with the money to purchase this at the end of this year.?