The House reauthorization bill implements several changes to the FIRE Grants program recommended in a position paper from all the major national fire service groups for reauthorization of the program.

For example, it supports the peer-review process for evaluating grant applications created by the USFA and returns authority to administrate the program to the U.S. Fire Administrator.

The act also makes volunteer EMS squads not affiliated with fire departments, hospitals or for-profit entities eligible for grants and caps the amount of funding this group can receive at 4% of the total program appropriation. Under the current law, only fire-related EMS is eligible.

Noncompetitive research and development grants for new technologies to improve firefighter safety have been added, while eliminating requirement for federal non-matching funds in this category.

The priority on projects that help protect children has been widened to “high-risk groups from fire” in fire prevention grants category.

The new bill raises the cap on individual grants to $1 million per year for departments serving populations less than 500,000; to $2 million for departments serving populations of 500,000 to one million people; and to $3 million for departments serving more than one million people.

It also lowers the nonfederal matching requirement for departments serving populations greater than 50,000 from 30% to 20%. The match for smaller departments remains 10%.