The Yakima Fire Department has been granted funding that will help hire three additional firefighters to the team. Yakima Fire Cheif Bob Stewart sent in the request to city council due the department being short staffed. "Currently I believe we slightly below average in the number of firefighters that we have," said Stewart. Yakima has 90 official crew members, 30 of them working together each shift. The high amount of overtime played a role in what lead to the grant request. "We have an extraordinary reliance on overtime funding. The overtime funding is more than it probably should be," said Stewart.