From the Portland Press Herald: Goodwin's Mills, Maine, will break ground this week on an addition to its 7-year-old fire station, thanks to $879,000 in federal stimulus funds from a grant proposal that Fire Chief H. Rodney Carpenter wrote, plus $100,000 in local money.

Also, Carpenter landed a $128,000 grant for new breathing gear for firefighters. He's pursuing grants to pay for four full-time firefighters, and he has an application in for funding to buy new communications equipment.

All this for a department that currently has just two full-time firefighters, a part-time chief, 55 volunteers, and about 600 fire and medical calls a year.