Today, Congressman Patrick McHenry announced the awarding of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant in the amount of $106,875 to a local fire department in the Tenth Congressional District.

The grant will go to the City of Newton Fire Department in Catawba County, and comes in the forty-second round of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG), which aims to help firefighters and first responders throughout the country.  Local departments applied for the grants, and the program is administered by the Grant Programs Directorate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in cooperation with the U.S. Fire Administration. 

According to Newton Assistant Fire Chief Jerry Travis, the grant funds will be used to purchase vehicle exhaust removal systems for all three of Newton’s municipal fire stations. 

“This system will help protect the health and safety of fire personnel by filtering out dangerous fumes that would normally linger in the vehicle bays and possibly circulate throughout the rest of the station,” said Chief Travis.

This is the Newton Fire Department’s second Homeland Security grant this year.  In April, the department received a $62,292 grant under the Fire Prevention and Safety (FP&S) grant program.

Congressman McHenry stated, “Newton has received several grants in recent years.  This clearly speaks to the professionalism of the department’s officers and firefighters, and the persuasiveness of the department’s applications.”

Newton is the third Catawba County fire department to receive AFG funding in this year’s cycle, following Long View Volunteer Fire Department which was funded in the fifteenth round and Bandy’s Crossroads Volunteer Fire Department which was funded in the twenty-first round. 

Thus far in the 2008 fiscal cycle, $1,743,884 has been awarded in twenty-six grants to twenty-four departments in the Tenth District and at least one department in each of the district’s ten counties has received a grant.

 
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