Lebanon Fire announces grants

Steven and Tabitha King Foundation grant paid for van. (Courtesy photo)

Lebanon Fire Department is pleased to announce that over the last two years we have received grants totaling $101,636.00. The first grant was from the Maine Forest Service in December of 2011 for a total of $3117.19 for the purchase of a forestry pump.  This grant is a 50/50 match where the awardee pays the full amount for the equipment and the Maine Forest Service reimburses half the amount, in this case $1558.60. The Fire Department Budget could not support this purchase, so the Lebanon Fire Department Corporation paid the full amount and got reimbursed by the Forest Service for the other half of this grant and donated the equipment to the town.

In February 2012 the Fire Department Corporation received a Grant from the Steven and Tabitha King Foundation in the amount of $30,000.00 to purchase a new 2012 Ford Econoline E350 van to replace a minivan and an old ambulance, both with high mileage and mechanical problems, which we were using as Squads 1 & 2. The Corporation spent another $10,000.00 to outfit it with lights, radios and other equipment and donated it to the town and is currently in service as Lebanon Squad 1.

In December 2012 we received another Grant from the Maine Forest Service for a total of $2506.56 to buy Forestry gear for our firefighters.  This grant is again a 50/50 from the Maine Forest Service where the fire department purchases the equipment in advance and the Forest Service reimburses 50% or $1253.28. The Fire Department Budget at this time has no funds to pay for this grant, so the Corporation is again paying for this equipment so that we will be able to outfit our firefighters for this coming forest fire season.

And last month, after four years of trying, the fire department was awarded a Grant from FEMA under the Assistant for Firefighter Grant (AFG) program in the amount of $66,000.00 for the purchase of twelve Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) with Masks and Spare Bottles. This is to replace older equipment that we are currently using. This apparatus is worn by firefighters to go into hazardous environments in order to successfully mitigate any problems we are called to respond to. This is also a 5% matching grant where FEMA pays $62,700.00 and the fire department pays $3,300.00.