According to the Department of Homeland Security, the Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program has provided $2.4 billion to fire departments and first responder organizations for response equipment, personal protective equipment, vehicles and fire prevention activities since 2001.

Last year alone, we requested $2.5 billion with only $485 million in grants to go around. Those funds will provide for only about 20% of the total applications, and only 5,000 fire-related organizations out of 18,000 FIRE Grant applicants (about 28%) received funding. In other words, the demand far exceeds the supply. The federal government holds the purse, thus we are all ears. Through their grants, the federal government has an excellent opportunity to effect change and help the fire service in the long run.

The federal government has an opportunity to take an in-depth look at local government shortcomings in planning, service delivery, funding mechanisms and emergency response resource management; through the FIRE Grants, the federal government can indirectly cause positive changes and improvement in the long run. After all, local governments tend to listen a tad more attentively to the federal government than they do to the emergency response resource planning and funding requests of their own fire chiefs.

This, of course, is by no means a new concept. Using grants to hold local governments accountable for implementing improvements is what the federal government has done quite well through many of its national agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, just to name a few.

Accountable grants

If it works well for others, then why not for us? We should first realize that not only is change not bad, it is absolutely necessary. It's obvious that the fire service is starved for resources and is chronically deprived at the local level. Changing that deficiency could only be good.

It's said that you can give a man a fish and feed him for a day, or you can teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. But we in the fire service keep our eyes on the federal FIRE Grants and hope that the fish keeps on coming year after year. Others say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so we should be grateful and happy with what little we get. And by all means, some maintain that we shouldn't rock the boat. I am an optimist at heart, but if history has anything to teach us, sooner or later this well could run dry. And then what?