County has no money to purchase breathing apparatus
Pickton-Pine Forest
Fire chiefs of Hopkins County volunteer fire departments held their bimonthly meeting to discuss the needs of their departments, specifically air packs, with the county commissioners and county judge at a meeting Monday night. Pickton-Pine Forest Chief Trey Thompson feels the need for renewed air packs and other supplies by volunteer departments may almost be reaching an emergency level, he said.
Judge Robert Newsom started the conversation about trying to find grants for the VFDs, because “the volunteers can get more grants than we [the county] can.”
“A lot of y’all’s [air] cylinders are getting ready to expire or have expired,” Hopkins County station 20 Chief Andy Endsley said.
Air packs or air cylinders are are canisters of pressurized air used by firefighting crews used to breathe while they work in areas with air that is heated or contaminated much like SCUBA, according to Firefighter Nation.
Endsley said that although station 20 maintained functioning air cylinders, he encouraged volunteer departments to use them if they needed them.
However, Brian Fairchild, chief of Arbala VFD, stated that borrowing air cylinders from station 20 was not a long-term solution as VFDs are often first on scene due to their proximity to rural locations.
“If you’re coming from wherever, it’s still going to be a delay. … Most the time the volunteers are going to be there first,” Fairchild said. “I’m standing there waiting; I could have already made a rescue.”
“My concern is that my bottles are out of date,” Thompson said. “And they could fail. Could we discuss getting spares to put on our two trucks? Because we’re one of the furthest ones out. … It takes y’all [Station 20] 22 miles to get out to us.”
Thompson further described that his air cylinders had several concerning problems, including leaking seals and failure to stay pressurized that could be dangerous — even fatally so — for a firefighter using them to breathe at a structure fire.
But a new breathing apparatus can cost up to $12,000 apiece, according to a West Tawakoni breathing air supply company, which is much more than the volunteer departments can afford.
“We took care of station 20, now let’s take care of other stations that are going out in the field … that can start fire attack prior to engine 20 being there,” Thompson said. “It’s always a second thought — what if station 20 was tied up? Are they already on another scene?”
Texas Forest Service representative Nathan Carroll said that the group could register to receive donated, used air canisters that “still have life to them.”
Fairchild, however, said he had recently called, and there were no air canisters available, only bunker gear.
Newsom brought up applying for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants, which the county had been doing more of lately, most notably in the case of a joint application with the Ark-Tex Council of Governments for improvement of roads after declared disaster 4416.
“The odds of you getting it — you’re competing with the nation. But if you don’t apply for it, you’ll never get it,” Carroll said.
“They’re handing out FEMA grants more towards regional, seems to be,” Fairchild said. Thompson agreed and wondered if Sulphur Springs city fire department might like to apply for a FEMA grant along with the VFDs.
“Grants are great, but we look at what y’all [the county] did for station 20 and we feel like we’re the stepchildren and we got left out,” Thompson told Newsom.
“Station 20 borrowed that money, and it comes out of his [Endsley’s] budget,” Pct. 1 County Commissioner Mickey Barker stated.
Thompson said that under no circumstances could the VFDs afford to pay back a loan of $100,000 like station 20 or even $10,000 that was stipulated for emergency fire expenditures from the county, although he said he believed it was an emergency for the VFDs to be able to replace their equipment.
Thompson noted that Pickton-Pine Forest was recently the recipient of a $108,000 grant to purchase a brush truck that they hope will be operational sometime in the near future — but they applied for the grant in 2011.
“We’re looking at eight years just for a firetruck,” Thompson said.
“That PPE [personal protective equipment] grant, I’ve been on there for three years,” Saltillo secretary Dutch Ballaster said. “I don’t know how many spots I’ve moved up. I don’t even check.”
By “spots,” Ballaster referred to preference given to departments who have waited longer for grants.
Carroll urged VFDs to, at the very least, put in applications for Texas Forest Service grants, which he said are easy to complete.
Newsom told the firefighters that the county could make no radical budget changes until July, when they start the county-wide budgeting process. County budgets are adopted Oct. 1, and VFDs are given an average of $700 per month in addition to fuel reimbursement.
The group resolved to look into pursuing a grant writer for FEMA grants with Newsom urging the VFDs to “go all in” on pursuing outside funding.
Fairchild told the News-Telegram he feels like a more effective approach to obtain funding for the VFDs is the creation of an emergency service district, which could, through taxation, provide VFDs with approximately $80,000 per year, Fairchild estimates.
Saltillo Chief John Brian Beadle told the News-Telegram that it “probably was getting to be an emergency for some departments” to replace airpacks.
“Pine Forest have had some that are just falling apart,” Beadle said. “But whether or not the state decides to fund a lot of grants, often times that ends up being politics or just what’s in the public eye.”
*An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Brian Fairchild as the Arbala captain, and stated $80,000 was a monthly figure when it is a yearly figure. The article has been changed to reflect those corrections