How are our chances?

[willings413]

I was wondering what everyone thought my department's chances were to get award a new pumper through Vehicle Acquisition in AFG? We had help writting our grant this year from Ron at ActionTraining. This will be our fourth year for applying for grants. So far we are 2 out 3 on grant awards. Last year however we applied for a new truck and didn't even make it to the peer review.

We did however find many errors in the answers we supplied last year. Our old fire chief handled the application and really messed up alot. We did however correct the answers for this year's grant with the help of Ron and several other grant writters.

We are applying for $194,000.00 to go towards the purchase of a new pumper. Currently our Rural Fire Association has no pumper. Our city department has a 1963 Reo pumper, but it is not aloud outside our city limits. We cover an 80 mile square radius outside of city limits, and we are working with a budget of about $3,000.00 per year with no surplus funds. Our other appartus consists of a 1983 Chevy 1 ton and a 1970 Chevy flat bed brush trucks. We have two tankers, one's a 1,000 gallon tanker and the other holds 3,000 gallons (old military fifth axle).

We responded to mainly rural fires, probably about 60% wildland and 40% structual or vehicle fires. We probably average about 60 to 70 fires a year.

Everyone around here is getting very anxious, and we were wondering what our chances of being awarded was. Thank you so much!

[ktb9780]

I was wondering what everyone thought my department's chances were to get award a new pumper through Vehicle Acquisition in AFG? We had help writting our grant this year from Ron at ActionTraining. This will be our fourth year for applying for grants. So far we are 2 out 3 on grant awards. Last year however we applied for a new truck and didn't even make it to the peer review.

We did however find many errors in the answers we supplied last year. Our old fire chief handled the application and really messed up alot. We did however correct the answers for this year's grant with the help of Ron and several other grant writters.

We are applying for $194,000.00 to go towards the purchase of a new pumper. Currently our Rural Fire Association has no pumper. Our city department has a 1963 Reo pumper, but it is not aloud outside our city limits. We cover an 80 mile square radius outside of city limits, and we are working with a budget of about $3,000.00 per year with no surplus funds. Our other appartus consists of a 1983 Chevy 1 ton and a 1970 Chevy flat bed brush trucks. We have two tankers, one's a 1,000 gallon tanker and the other holds 3,000 gallons (old military fifth axle).

We responded to mainly rural fires, probably about 60% wildland and 40% structual or vehicle fires. We probably average about 60 to 70 fires a year.

Everyone around here is getting very anxious, and we were wondering what our chances of being awarded was. Thank you so much!

What is your population and square mileage served, how many mutual aid calls are you asnwering?

[onebugle]

Just to keep things in perspective the vehicle catergory is extremely competitve with 1 out 10 being funded.

Is the pumper in addition to what you mention or is it replacing 1 or more pieces of apparatus?

[LVFD301]

We are applying for $194,000.00 to go towards the purchase of a new pumper. !

I would URGE you to look at this figure close. I thought 274k would
surely cover the truck we are getting - and it will be close.

[willings413]

To answer everyone's question:

1. What is your population and square mileage served, how many mutual aid calls are you asnwering?

We cover an 80 square mile radius with an estimated population of 5,000.

2. Is the pumper in addition to what you mention or is it replacing 1 or more pieces of apparatus?

This truck will be an addition to our fleet, however we have no rural pumper.

3. I would URGE you to look at this figure close. I thought 274k would
surely cover the truck we are getting - and it will be close.

The bid we found for our truck was like $189,000.00. It will be a four door top mounted pumper tanker. The additional funds is to implement a driver program.

[willings413]

Correction for my last reply, we cover a 225 mile square radius.

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Do you mean by errors in your answers, do you mean that you put in the wrong numbers in the statistical portion of the application? Or that you didn't quite answer the narrative needs correctly?

If it was statistics that changed, you might make have made it to Peer Review this time around. Only 25 vehicle apps out of 100 make it to Peer. If you found narrative issues, you still might be out in the cold. Not making Peer in a previous project attempt is a pretty decent sign that you're not "statistically needy" compared to other Rural departments. Since 80 sq miles and 5k residents makes you Rural.

For better or for worse, time will tell. I agree that you have a heck of a need based on what little we know. But it's all in how that was communicated to Peer, if it made it there. I'd have put good odds on it making it there. Without having your 1199A already you're not at the top of the list, but vehicles are hard to keep in the high 90s in scoring.

Good luck and keep us posted.

- Brian

[batt403]

We are also a small rural district in Missouri and were successful in 2004 for a Rescue/Pumper. We cover 26 square miles of our own district, contract an additional 14 with an adjoining district and cover an additional 40 on top of that with rescue services for a grand total of 80 square miles.
We have a population of approx. 2500 residents and run around 200 calls per year. Our run numbers are not that high but we emphasized our automatic and mutual aid with adjoining districts in our narrative.
Our award was for $225,000 (fema share) and our apparatus was built for $257,xxx.

SO it can be done.

I saw that you have also been successful with other grants so I would imagine you have the basis of the narrative down.

[onebugle]

To get to peer review you need to get past the computer scoring. Based on the info provided that was where you went wrong last year and the info was corrected this year and hopefully puts you to peer review.

The issue with the peer review is that we are not comparing apples to apples, but apples to oranges. Each department is different in its make up, coverage size, mutual aid calls, incidents per year, budget, problems, needs, solutions etc. Your chances will be good if the narrative is strong.

The one issue that throws up a red flag for me is the size of your budget while adding an additional piece of apparatus. Costs, such as fuel, routine maintenance will increase with the new addition, along with the aging fleet as well. I see that causing questions for the PRs. Again, this is based on only a little bit of info that is being provided.

[willings413]

To better emphasize and clairify my previous statements let me try to explain the different. Last year when we applied, there were many "stupid" mistakes made. For example, he stated that we had two fire engines in operation. The truth is that we don't. We have a 1963 Reo pumper, however it does not meet NFPA requirements, and on top of that it is ONLY for city calls only. This grant is being written for our Rural Fire Association. And our rural fire association currently has no fire engine.

Another error we found was the amount of incidents we had. Even more so he stated that we only covered an 80 mile radius with only a few hundred residents. Our Association actually protects a 225 mile square radius around our city. It has always been that way since the Association was created. It has never changed. He simply had a mathematical error in his figuring. On top of that the current demographics state that we actually cover almost 5,000 residents in our 225 square mile radius.

Another error we had found was where it asks a question to the affect of "If awarded, will the apparatus help any other department's or agencies?" And to this question he said "no". From my understanding from several grant writters is that if you answer "no" to that question, your application will automatically be thrown out. Because you are basically stating that you are not available for mutual aide, and thus their money could be spent on a fire deparment that is willing to help out other fire departments. We responded to mutual aid on a regular basis. Infact we have been mutual aided several times at Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Knoster, MO which houses several B-2 Stealth Bombers.

I could go on and on about several other mistakes he had made, but my fingers are way too sore to continue. Like I had previously stated, Ron (a grant writter and previous peer reviewer for FEMA) had helped us this year in the grant process. He made many corrections to our Narrative, and stated that our narrative is now very consise, clear, and powerful.

As for the comment about our budget and not being able to afford gas, our budget includes our fuel costs. Our city is pretty good about paying almost all of our bills, and we are basically left with some minor ones and fuel costs. Which the statement is true in the fact that it is an obvious thing that fuel costs will greatly increase by the use of the new pumper if awarded. But as of now to respond to a rural structure fire, we have to bring both brush units, and both tankers to fight our fire, whereas if we had a pumper we would only need it, and the two tankers. Our brush units only hold about 300-400 gallons of water.

I guess you might call it a case of nervousness or anxiety, but I just need some reassurance. I'm just curious as how competitive a department of my size is against other larger departments handling larger amounts of incidents. I know a department about 25 miles away from us, which handles the same amount of calls we do, covering only about 40 more square miles than we do was awarded a truck back in 2004 I believe. Maybe that's a good indicator that it a possible feat?

[LVFD301]

First off, how old is your truck bid? The new engines are greatly increasing
costs. 2007 standards are much higher.


Are you asking because of a 2006 grant you are waiting to hear about? Have you been asked to update your 1199a? If it is a 2006 truck grant, (the one we are all waiting on) and you have not been asked to update your 1199a
yet, I would figure that your chances have gotten slimmer, as a large number of apparatus will be announced Friday, and those departments have already had their 1199a updates.

Lots of trucks go out in the first rounds.

You still have a chance though

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

We have a 1963 Reo pumper, however it does not meet NFPA requirements,

NFPA requirements have nothing to do with reporting vehicles on the application.

I guess part of the confusion here is that you're writing "city", "fire association", and "our" covering both of those entities. If the same EIN is in use for both agencies then they are one department and can only apply once. Now if the pumper app is the lone application, then you're fine. If both city and rural applied this year, both apps will be tossed.

Answering no to the 'will this help more than one department' will not get apps automatically tossed. If you answer yes and have a valid answer it will help, but answering no won't hurt as much as some think it does.

Depending on the changes to the numbers in the info portion of the application, that may help you ge through Peer. The changes to the narrative will definitely help if you did get there.

We can't offer much reassurance at this point, until the first round is actually announced and we see how many vehicle apps were funded. Last year 87% of all trucks were awarded by Round 3, over 50% were in Round 1. No word on whether or not that trend is the same this year also. I think you have a decent chance considering the lower cost of the vehicle that you proposed, but the odds are against all apps. 1 in 4 overall, 1 in 3 Ops & Safety Category, 1 in 10 vehicle. Hang in there and keep us posted.

- Brian

[BB3939]

Brian:

If they have the same EIN number the feds would consider this one organization, correct? If so, would their whole fleet not be reportable in the application reguardless of internal prohabitations against certain apparats responding outside the "city." I guess the question really is...is this one organization or two?

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Yes, with 1 EIN then all vehicles would have to be reported in the application. Even if they do turn into pumpkins at the city line.

[neiowa]

Side note.

How common is this "turn into pumpkins" at the city limits thing.

If a FD gets a dime in return for providing rural coverage how can anyone justify that every single piece of available equipment is not available to respond to rural fires? Sounds like a couple 8yr old brothers arguing over dividing up the turf in a shared bedroom. If logic does not work you can't lay guilt onto the city fathers to act responsibly?