Warsaw Fire Applying For Grant To Replace Save-A-Life Trailer
March 8, 2023 at 12:06 a.m.
Warsaw Fire Applying For Grant To Replace Save-A-Life Trailer
By David [email protected]
At Tuesday’s WWFT board meeting, EMS Chief Chris Fancil said, “There’s a grant out there right now through AFG - through FEMA, it’s a federal grant - but the focus is on public safety and education. So, in talking with the pub. ed. (public education) group this morning, we talked about trying to replace the Save-A-Life trailer.”
He said the trailer has been a great resource for the entire county to use.
“You take it out and put it at an elementary school. The kids go through it and they learn how to escape the house (in the event of a fire), how to stay safe, those kind of things,” Fancil said.
Obviously, in 30 years technology has changed, he said, “so what we would like to do is apply for a grant to replace that trailer.”
He said they just found out about the grant and the application is due by the end of the month, so he didn’t have all the information available to present to the fire territory board on Tuesday and there’s no board meeting before the grant application is due.
The grant does require a 5% match. He asked the board for their permission to pursue the grant.
Mayor Joe Thallemer asked how much the grant was for. Fancil said FEMA is going to give away $100 million specifically for prevention and safety. Asked by Thallemer how much the trailer would cost, Fancil said they’re still trying to figure that out, but estimates are from $65,000 to $200,000.
“But, again, we’ve got to figure out what our 5% would look like,” Fancil said. “I kind of also talked to the County Fire Association a little bit to see if they would be supportive of doing this, because it would be on them to take it to some of the schools to do the education piece, and they’re totally on board with that. They felt like it was a great resource for their communities as well.”
He said he doesn’t have an end figure yet for the trailer because the public education group is meeting with a company Wednesday to “spec out” what they want.
Board member Brandon Schmitt said, “I think it’s definitely worthwhile. That Save-A-Life trailer has been used for at least 30 years. The return on investment on that has been pretty good. I’m just confident that a new Save-A-Life trailer would definitely be used. If there’s grants available for it, depending on details, I think it would be a great thing to support.”
While the grant application is due by March 31, Fancil said they won’t know if they’ll receive a grant until July. Before they accepted the grant, he said they would present the board with real hard numbers and then the board would have the choice of what to do.
Board member and Common Councilman Mike Klondaris made a motion to allow the grant application, Schmitt seconded it and it passed unanimously.
The fire territory is also seeking another grant from a local grant provider for thermal cameras.
Firefighter Miles Waters requested permission to apply for a Kosciusko REMC Operation Round-Up grant for $3,000 to purchase eight thermal cameras and eight keepers that hold the cameras. Right now, the fire department only has three.
He said the cameras are only about the size of a cell phone. With eight, “that way we can have everybody on shift able to access this camera and have one,” Waters said.
A difference between the three the WWFT has now and the eight they want to purchase is that the eight are in color.
“It’s going to help us find victims, it’s going to help us find egress to get out of the structure. Not only find hidden fires ... but we can go outdoors, find people missing that’s wandered off into the woods just by picking up heat signatures,” Waters said.
If a vehicle is leaking something, the cameras will allow them to see that, too.
While they’re going to apply for a $3,000 grant, Waters said the fire territory is going to contribute a little over $1,700 for the eight thermal cameras and keepers. He said the keepers will attach the cameras to the person so they pull the cameras up, scan the room and it can hang on their front side.
Waters said the estimated cost is based on a quote from January.
Thallemer asked about the life of the cameras. Waters said, depending on the wear and tear, they could last almost 10 years.
Battalion Chief Mike Brubaker said, “I think, from a management standpoint, the ones that we carry on our frontline trucks, they’re for the officers. What we’re trying to do is get that thermal imaging capability, at an affordable cost, into the firefighters’ hands also. If that firefighter gets separated, then they have a chance to be able to see through the smoke, see through the heat.”
He said the eight cameras will be an economical way to get the technology into firefighters’ hands.
Waters said there was a small apartment fire back in January with zero visibility.
“Captain Zehring and I went in. He went and went in to the right with his camera that was scanning right. I went in to the left and started going straight. We found the fire in the bathroom. We passed the lady laying on the floor behind the door. We heard her cough - that’s how we turned around and went back and found her,” Waters said.
If he would have had a thermal camera, he said he could have scanned that way and maybe found her a little bit faster. The outcome still turned out great, and the woman is OK, but another camera could have helped find her a little faster.
Waters said the cameras also will be for neighboring fire departments when they call WWFT to assist. The high school fire training class will be able to train on them.
The territory board unanimously approved the grant application to be made to KREMC.
Fancil then requested the board’s approval to apply for the State of Indiana Opioid Settlement Match Grant for $137,816.95. The settlement money the city received in 2022 will be the match for the grant, which will be used for expansion of the CARES (Community Assistance, Resources and Emergency Services) program. The Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety approved the grant application at its meeting Friday.
“We were really pressed for time. We decided we were going to move forward on this. The state announced this settlement funds way late and then said we had to have them (grant applications) in by the end of February,” Fancil said.
He said they met with Thallemer and Warsaw Police Department leadership about how to approach the grant application. Thallemer gave the go ahead to apply for the grant before it was presented to the Board of Works and fire territory due to the timeline.
The territory board approved the grant application.
They also approved a contract with 1Eighty Digital to begin the design and execution of the CARES resource website and phone app, as presented by Fancil. The Board of Works approved the contract Friday.
The Kosciusko County Community Foundation awarded a $7,500 grant toward the website and app. With the cost of the contract being $7,800, WWFT will only have a cost of $300 and a monthly maintenance fee of $50 for hosting.
The website will put all available resources on one website.
At Tuesday’s WWFT board meeting, EMS Chief Chris Fancil said, “There’s a grant out there right now through AFG - through FEMA, it’s a federal grant - but the focus is on public safety and education. So, in talking with the pub. ed. (public education) group this morning, we talked about trying to replace the Save-A-Life trailer.”
He said the trailer has been a great resource for the entire county to use.
“You take it out and put it at an elementary school. The kids go through it and they learn how to escape the house (in the event of a fire), how to stay safe, those kind of things,” Fancil said.
Obviously, in 30 years technology has changed, he said, “so what we would like to do is apply for a grant to replace that trailer.”
He said they just found out about the grant and the application is due by the end of the month, so he didn’t have all the information available to present to the fire territory board on Tuesday and there’s no board meeting before the grant application is due.
The grant does require a 5% match. He asked the board for their permission to pursue the grant.
Mayor Joe Thallemer asked how much the grant was for. Fancil said FEMA is going to give away $100 million specifically for prevention and safety. Asked by Thallemer how much the trailer would cost, Fancil said they’re still trying to figure that out, but estimates are from $65,000 to $200,000.
“But, again, we’ve got to figure out what our 5% would look like,” Fancil said. “I kind of also talked to the County Fire Association a little bit to see if they would be supportive of doing this, because it would be on them to take it to some of the schools to do the education piece, and they’re totally on board with that. They felt like it was a great resource for their communities as well.”
He said he doesn’t have an end figure yet for the trailer because the public education group is meeting with a company Wednesday to “spec out” what they want.
Board member Brandon Schmitt said, “I think it’s definitely worthwhile. That Save-A-Life trailer has been used for at least 30 years. The return on investment on that has been pretty good. I’m just confident that a new Save-A-Life trailer would definitely be used. If there’s grants available for it, depending on details, I think it would be a great thing to support.”
While the grant application is due by March 31, Fancil said they won’t know if they’ll receive a grant until July. Before they accepted the grant, he said they would present the board with real hard numbers and then the board would have the choice of what to do.
Board member and Common Councilman Mike Klondaris made a motion to allow the grant application, Schmitt seconded it and it passed unanimously.
The fire territory is also seeking another grant from a local grant provider for thermal cameras.
Firefighter Miles Waters requested permission to apply for a Kosciusko REMC Operation Round-Up grant for $3,000 to purchase eight thermal cameras and eight keepers that hold the cameras. Right now, the fire department only has three.
He said the cameras are only about the size of a cell phone. With eight, “that way we can have everybody on shift able to access this camera and have one,” Waters said.
A difference between the three the WWFT has now and the eight they want to purchase is that the eight are in color.
“It’s going to help us find victims, it’s going to help us find egress to get out of the structure. Not only find hidden fires ... but we can go outdoors, find people missing that’s wandered off into the woods just by picking up heat signatures,” Waters said.
If a vehicle is leaking something, the cameras will allow them to see that, too.
While they’re going to apply for a $3,000 grant, Waters said the fire territory is going to contribute a little over $1,700 for the eight thermal cameras and keepers. He said the keepers will attach the cameras to the person so they pull the cameras up, scan the room and it can hang on their front side.
Waters said the estimated cost is based on a quote from January.
Thallemer asked about the life of the cameras. Waters said, depending on the wear and tear, they could last almost 10 years.
Battalion Chief Mike Brubaker said, “I think, from a management standpoint, the ones that we carry on our frontline trucks, they’re for the officers. What we’re trying to do is get that thermal imaging capability, at an affordable cost, into the firefighters’ hands also. If that firefighter gets separated, then they have a chance to be able to see through the smoke, see through the heat.”
He said the eight cameras will be an economical way to get the technology into firefighters’ hands.
Waters said there was a small apartment fire back in January with zero visibility.
“Captain Zehring and I went in. He went and went in to the right with his camera that was scanning right. I went in to the left and started going straight. We found the fire in the bathroom. We passed the lady laying on the floor behind the door. We heard her cough - that’s how we turned around and went back and found her,” Waters said.
If he would have had a thermal camera, he said he could have scanned that way and maybe found her a little bit faster. The outcome still turned out great, and the woman is OK, but another camera could have helped find her a little faster.
Waters said the cameras also will be for neighboring fire departments when they call WWFT to assist. The high school fire training class will be able to train on them.
The territory board unanimously approved the grant application to be made to KREMC.
Fancil then requested the board’s approval to apply for the State of Indiana Opioid Settlement Match Grant for $137,816.95. The settlement money the city received in 2022 will be the match for the grant, which will be used for expansion of the CARES (Community Assistance, Resources and Emergency Services) program. The Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety approved the grant application at its meeting Friday.
“We were really pressed for time. We decided we were going to move forward on this. The state announced this settlement funds way late and then said we had to have them (grant applications) in by the end of February,” Fancil said.
He said they met with Thallemer and Warsaw Police Department leadership about how to approach the grant application. Thallemer gave the go ahead to apply for the grant before it was presented to the Board of Works and fire territory due to the timeline.
The territory board approved the grant application.
They also approved a contract with 1Eighty Digital to begin the design and execution of the CARES resource website and phone app, as presented by Fancil. The Board of Works approved the contract Friday.
The Kosciusko County Community Foundation awarded a $7,500 grant toward the website and app. With the cost of the contract being $7,800, WWFT will only have a cost of $300 and a monthly maintenance fee of $50 for hosting.
The website will put all available resources on one website.
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