Fire department given $90K grant

The Denver Fire Department has been awarded a $90,000 grant of federal emergency management money.
The funding was awarded by the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program, which awards one year grants to local fire departments helping them with public health and safety.
Over 20,000 applications were received from all over the United States.
The Denver Fire Department applied for the application in April and has been waiting to hear since then.
Denver Fire Department is the second station in Lincoln County that received a grant this year. Crouse Fire Department was awarded $20,000 two months ago.
Jeff VonCannon, Assistant Fire Chief at the Denver Fire Department said the experience is very rewarding.
“It’s an eye opener, especially for the general public as far as how expensive it is to protect safety,” VonCannon said.
He said the department will use the money for two big projects. The first is for an exhaust removal system in the station.
“When the trucks fire up in the station the diesel will be eliminated by the system,” he said. “This is a great thing for employee safety.”
The remaining portion of the money will be used to purchase an emergency generator for the station.
“When the ice storm hit last year many fire stations had no heat, but now we can expect to have that,” he said.
The grant has roughly $900 million that is divided up between volunteer and paid fire departments all over the United States.
The Denver Fire Department has applied for the grant the two previous years with no avail.
“We had asked for a fire boat but that is very low low priority,” VonCannon said. “We decided to step this route and ask for the the exhaust removal system and the energy generator, this will definitely make things better.”
by Amy Wadsworth