PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Stanley Fire Dept is requesting a grant to undertake our priority
projects of:
1. Improving Firefighter safety by equipping our firefighters with
Personal Protective Equipment and SCBA air equipment that will meet
current NFPA/OSHA/NIOSH standards and;
2. Add deluge monitor that will allow us to apply large volume of water
to fires requiring large fire flows. Previously, lack of a monitor was
not a critical shortage as we could not move more than 350gpm by
existing tanker shuttle and;
3. Address our shortage of water supply, as defined by ISO and NFPA
standards, by putting into service equipment we acquired from the US
Department of Defense surplus system. Specifically, Fire hydrants and
Large Diameter Hose (LDH) for use in the Southern of our fire district.
PLANNED USE OF FUNDS We will use grant and local funds to purchase
safety equipment including:15sets of Personal Protective Equipment -
turnout gear including Bunker pants, coats, hoods, gloves, boots and
helmets at cost of $22500 ($1500ea); and 12ea High pressure SCBAs with
mask mounted regulator, integrated PASS, helmet mic/ear speaker assembly
for leaders and one (1) extra air bottle per unit at cost of $58800 ($4900ea);
1ea Fragmentation Deflector unit (to fit 2 bottles) for use with our
newly acquired portable cascade system $1150.
Also for our water supply project we will purchase: 12sets fire
department hose ends sets (4" Storz) for the brand new 9000ft of LDH
which we recently acquired from US Army surplus $2940 ($245 per set).
Install 4" Storz hydrant couplers on 16ea hydrants being installed in
our fire district $3920 ($245ea). We acquired hydrans from US Air Force
surplus and we will be installing during the summer of 2004 on a private
rural water distribution system being constructed in the Buchanan
County portion of our fire district.
BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM
The City of Stanley Fire Dept was founded in 1923 and serves the city of
Stanley Iowa and 33 sq mi of rural Buchanan and Fayette County Iowa.
Stanley is a city with a population of 131 and, unlike most rural Iowa
towns, had 12% growth between 1990 and 2000. This was entirely due to
turnover of housing to young families with children. We provide daytime
automatic mutual aid to the City of Aurora Ia (pop 195, 7 miles to SE).
We also provide and receive mutual aid with 37 department in Buchanan
and Fayette counties. The Stanley Fire Dept has 16 current members
including 3 new members added in the last year. The City of Stanley and
Fire Dept have been revitalized in the last 2 years due to a new mayor,
100% new city council and a new fire chief. Fire Dept improvement is
central to the council and significant progress has been made in the
last 18 months. We have laid out an objective of improving our status
from ISO 9 (unrated) to ISO 5 or better. The improvements required will
s!
ignificantly increase our real world ability to protect the lives and
property of the citizens we protect and will also provide a substantial
financial benefit (50% savings on fire insurance) to property owners.
The Council regards this as not only a safety issue but an economic
development issue, as such a high rating for a small rural town will
make Stanley unique in Iowa. Our most significant problem is water
supply which counts for 40% of the ISO score. We calculate the hydrant,
LDH and tanker projects we have undertaken will give us 75% of allowable
ISO credit for water supply (30% of total score). With your support in
completing these water supply project and the other improvements of the
last 18 months we are confident we can achieve a rating of ISO 5 in 2005.
Our equipment capability has been limited due to a very small budget of
$7500 per year. Source of department operating funds are property taxes
and local option sales tax. Fixed expenses were over $7000 per year.
Department fund raising was quite successful due to the very strong
support by the community and added some $3000 per year which funded
department improvements. Our long term equipment shortages, and priority
equipment needs were: a reliable modern pumper truck, a brush/wildland
truck, a local water supply, NFPA compliant personal protective
equipment and SCBA, a cascade air system or compressor to refill SCBA,
and a first responder vehicle. Our only really capable piece of
equipment was a newly purchased 1988 Ford L8000 water tanker (former
milk tank truck). This 2600gal tanker is, by a large margin, the largest
tanker in the area.
After years of typical hand wringing over our shortages we attacked the
problem with considerable success. We applied for and obtained a USDA
Rural Development grant, used our savings and borrowed for a $60000
project to purchase a very very nice 1985 Ford L9000 pumper/tanker truck
with only 12000mi. We equipped this truck with all new hose, nozzles,
vent fan, vent saws, etc (that we have never had). 100% of the equipment
required by ISO for full credit on a pumper. This replaced a worn out
3rd hand 1970 pumper truck. We obtained new portable water tanks and
tanker loading pumps from the Army surplus system and installed
120000gal of temporary water storage in Stanley in the summer of 2003.
We obtained from Army surplus a beautiful brand new wheeled high
pressure SCUBA cascade fill system which we converted to SCBA fill by
changing the cylinder fill hose ends. In Jan 2004 we obtained from Air
Force Surplus a 1988 Class 6 International Diesel Automatic 4x4 dump
truck with 250!
00mi. We are now converting this to a brush/wildland fire truck and
first responder vehicle with the assistance of a State Forestry grant
and a 600gal baffled water tank (from Army surplus). We have also
obtained from Army surplus a semi truck and trailer which we are
converting to a water tanker. In the summer of 2004 the City of Stanley
is constructing/digging a 350000 gallon fire water reservoir to serve
Stanley and our rural district.
In May 2003 the first two department members to ever do so, completed
Fire Fighter 1 (FF1) training. In April 2004 six more of our fire
fighters will complete FF1. 50% of our firefighters will then have
completed FF1. We are planning to host FF1 in Jan-Apr 2005 so the
remainder of our personnel can participate without the need to drive to
training. This is a testimony to our new energy and to the leadership of
the Fire Dept.
Our outside the box projects using military surplus equipment and
utilizing federal/state grants have solved several of our most critical
shortages. These projects have substantially improved our capability but
also have consumed nearly all of our savings and the pumper truck loan
will consume our free cash flow until 2009.
Due to our recent progress in making department improvements we
persuaded the rural township boards we serve, in the Buchanan and
Fayette Counties, to increase their taxing to the maximum amount allowed
by law. Both townships also allocated us additional coverage area
formerly handled be a less effective neighboring fire district. The City
of Stanley is funding the Fire Dept to the maximum amount possible.
This funding increased our annual budget to approx $12000 and allowed us
to enter into a bank loan so that we could purchase our new pumper
truck. We have utilized available federal/state grants to the extent
possible.
We still have critical equipment needs we can not meet without
additional outside. Specifically for:
1. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and SCBA that meet NFPA/OSHA/NIOSH
standards.
With the exception of one new set of turn out gear acquired in 2003 to
fit a new very tall recruit all our turn out gear is more than 10 years
old. 2/3 of our PPE was acquired 2nd hand and is up to 20 years old and
thus we only have one set of sixteen that meets NFPA standards. We want
to acquire 15 sets of PPE in order to equip our active firefighters with
safe modern equipment. Cost to purchase 15ea PPE is $22,500.
We only have six SCBA which is not adequate to support typical turnout
at a structure fire. Two brands, all low pressure units. Three were
acquired used and are more than ten years old. Three were purchased as
new obsolete demos in 1997. Buchanan and Fayette County departments have
standardized on high pressure systems in the last two years, with fire
grant funds, and the two compressors in the area are both high pressure
installed since 2002. We have a new high pressure cascade system on hand
to support operation of high pressure SCBA. We wish to replace our
obsolete low pressure SCBA with 12ea modern 60minute high pressure units
that comply with NFPA/OSHA/NIOSH standards and will allow us to work
with our mutual aid departments on interior attack operations. Cost to
purchase 12 SCBA is $58800.
The personal equipment on hand is woefully inadequate to support
firefighter operations that would require entry into an involved
structure. We simply can not trust the integrity of our PPE and SCBA. We
are therefor restricted to outside containment operations. This is
obviously a severe restriction on our effectiveness in preserving life
and property. Purchase of replacement PPE and SCBA are far beyond our
capability to fund. Unlike many small departments we are adequately
manned to support our normal operations but we can not adequately equip
these firefighters with the equipment required to allow them to safely
do their job. Without Fire Grant funding it will be after July 2006,
when our pumper truck loan is retired, that we may be able to begin
acquiring these expensive and very necessary items. It is likely to be
after 2010 before we can complete given current funding.
In 2003 we obtained a new high pressure wheel cascade air system to
converted to fill SCBA. This unit has no fragmentation protection
equipment of any kind. A critical safety shortage. We propose to
purchase a commercial fragmentation deflector unit to install on our
cascade system. Cost to purchase a unit that will hold 4 SCBA cylinders
is $1150.
2. Water supply - Fire hydrants/LDH. A private rural water system is
being installed in the Buchanan County portion of our fire district
during 2004. Iowa law requires rural water system provide fire dept
access to water but does not fund cost of installing hydrants.
We have obtained 16 modern civilian fire hydrant from US Air Force
surplus and 9000ft of brand new LDH from US Army surplus. This equipment
will be used to supply water flow, as required to meet ISO standards to,
75% of the residences in the Buchanan Co portion of our fire district (up
to over 1000gpm). To supply the remainder of our fire district, we are
adding additional tanker capacity, again using military surplus truck/trailer
equipment & baffled tanks. We will be installing temporary water
storage tanks in the Fayette County (Northern) portion of our fire
district during 2004. We will have these fire dept owned hydrants
installed but need Storz hydrant connections on the steamer nozzle to
conform to the standard of the two large cities which provide us with
mutual aid. Cost to install Storz connections on 16 hydrants is $4000.
The LDH has military specific hose ends so we must to convert to Storz
connections. We need 12 sets of hose ends to convert the hose. Cost to
convert 12 hoses to Storz connections is $2940.
To transport the LDH we need a hose wagon. We recently received an Army
surplus flatbed trailer for this purposed and will convert by installing
NFPA emergency lighting, hose bed, and to support relay pumping
operations a large centrifugal pump (also Army surplus). Our brush truck
will pull the hose wagon when necessary. Cost to convert hose wagon is
$6500.
With the availability of adequate water supply we now must plan how to
effectively conduct operations at the larger structures in our district
(over 1000gpm). Before we installed water storage tanks in Stanley on a
good day with mutual aid we could tanker shuttle 350gpm. With the
availability of water in Stanley for tanker shuttle and rural hydrants
located in the vicinity of large structures we can move up to 1500gpm.
We have 2 large livestock confinement buildings and a two warehouse/factories
that have fire flow requirements over 1500gpm. We have no equipment
capable of flowing big water. We need to acquire a monitor to eliminate
this equipment shortfall. We plan to purchase a portable monitor that we
can mount on our pumper or ground mount as required and 250ft of 4"
Storz supply hose. Cost to purchase monitor with supply hose is $3450.
These projects are moderately expensive but we will not be have funds
available to complete this project until 2006 when pumper truck loan is
retired.
PROGRAM BENEFITS
We will be able to effectively and safely conduct interior attack
operations in our district and in support of our mutual aid departments.
We will have equipment that meets the standards of our mutual aid
departments. We will have adequate water supply to meet ISO standards
for homes in our fire district.
LOCAL FUNDS
We are already receiving the maximum amount of tax funding possible.
There is no likelihood of any budget increases from public funding. Any
capital improvements must come from grant sources (limited such sources
are available). We have been very active during the last 2 years making
the improvements (substantial) that we could. However, there a limits to
what suitable types of surplus equipment is available thru the military
and we have pushed this to the limit. In the area of life safety
equipment we believe the only prudent option is to acquire new,
compliant gear. We have self funded, borrowed, and obtained grants and
are rectifying several of our most critical equipment shortfalls. Our
PPE and SCBA shortage in particular, is not solvable thru any of these
methods. We have sufficient funds on hand, expected from our predictable
$3000/yr in local fund raisers, or available from short term loan from
the City of Stanley to meet the local
match requirement.