The Facilitating Investment Required for Emergency Services to All Towns in Our Nation Act or FIRE STATION Act is being introduced in the United States Congress.
If passed by Congress and signed into law, the FIRE STATION Act will create a $750 million grant program within FEMA to modify, upgrade, and construct fire and EMS department facilities nation wide.
WTAP spoke to Little Hocking Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mike Chevalier about how a program like this could help his station. Chevalier said he was glad to hear the program was under consideration. “It’s great news, because there’s a lot of improvements that you can make that would really improve the life of the paid firemen and also the volunteer departments,” he said.
Chevalier said that the price of firefighting equipment has ballooned over the past decade, hitting his and other departments hard. “A bigger proportion of the budget has to go toward apparatus” the chief said.