Here are recent Fire Chief's columns from
The Arizona Republic
City
of Phoenix Public Information Office - News Clippings - azcentral.com
- May 2, 2009
Grants, other issues confront 1st Responders
The year 2009 reflects a change in administration for Washington, D.C., and that trickles down to local municipalities – to state, counties, and to the cities in a number of ways. For me and the group of first responders that I work with it has added a little bit of a challenge to the work that we do on a regular basis. We work with the Department of Homeland Security on a number of levels that vary from the ACTIC which is the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center to our Urban Search and Rescue team which responds to natural disasters and acts of terrorism, or our AHIMT that responded to Redding, California.
Meeting with these folks comes under the office of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. They, too, are in flux – vetting a new FEMA Director as well as a new U.S. Fire Administrator – all of which impacts the Phoenix Fire Department and much of the work we do. We’ve been working recently with FEMA on a couple of different levels. The Urban Search and Rescue team we call the US&R team is reassessing the funding we receive – somewhere in the area of $1 million – and our ability, along with the other 27 teams, to respond to emergencies.
In the 21st Century, one of the challenges we have is simply the catch phrase “weapons of mass destruction” which can reflect bioterrorism, i.e., an anthrax contamination or the for lack of a better term the “dirty bomb” scenario which involves nuclear waste. At the same time, we have to have a hazardous material component that can respond to a chemical leak which might come along with a hurricane, earth quake, or even a terrorist attack.
These two responses, although somewhat connected, have completely different criteria. We currently are sorting through our ability to define what an Urban Search and Rescue response should reflect, sending firefighters that have the capacity for a chemical or hazardous material response would not necessarily provide the same level of resources for a nuclear or biochemical attack. All this seems very complicated, but at the end of the day it reflects the ability of the Phoenix Fire Department to network on a national level and protect the communities across the United States.
Here locally, we are pursuing grant funding from the U.S. Fire Administration for the 51st Avenue Tank Farm. The expansion of that facility literally placed millions of gallons of fuel in the back yard of the only fire station assigned to protect it. It sounds crazy, but tactically we needed to take equipment and firefighters who, along with the daily calls in protecting the neighborhoods and that community, had special equipment for tank farm response and place them in surrounding fire stations. Although we lobbied different oil companies to absorb the cost of building a new fire station, the funding fell short and never came to fruition. We are now hoping that our application for a new facility would allow us to move the firefighters and equipment designed for the tank farm and protect that geographical area along the 51st Avenue corridor in southwest Phoenix.
We will continue to pursue these funds while the federal government draws up the requirements which are due this month and will clarify our ability to receive a $5 million allocation.
Additionally, there has been a grant that is referred to as SAFER which helps pay for firefighters. This is good news since we are building two fire stations with 2006 Bond money, but do not have the firefighters to open those stations. Essentially, we will have to relocate firefighters from other parts of this community to staff these new stations. The SAFER grant which does not require matching funds gives us a five-year window to hire the firefighters needed for the new stations without depleting services elsewhere in the city of Phoenix.
If all this seems a little overwhelming, that’s because it can be. I’m fortunate to have some very bright individuals who are working towards making these grant applications and resolving some of these challenging issues. Hopefully in the long run, we will make Phoenix safer for emergency response and will help provide a safer environment for our firefighters who may be asked to travel across the United States to deliver service.
If you have any thoughts or feedback, please pop me an e-mail and remember, be safe!
Send comments to Bob Khan at firechief.pfd@phoenix.gov or call (602) 26-CHIEF.