Today, Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10) announced $244,457 in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant to a local fire department in the Tenth Congressional District.

The grant will go to the Lincolnton Fire Department in Lincoln County, and comes in the ninth round of this year’s Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Grant awards. These grants assist local fire departments by enabling them to increase their staffing and deployment capabilities in order to respond to emergencies whenever they may occur.  Local departments applied for the grants from the program which is administered by the Grant Programs Directorate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in cooperation with the U.S. Fire Administration. 

According to Lincolnton Fire Chief Ryan Heavner, the grant will be used to hire three new career firefighters, one for each shift.  This will bring each shift up to eight fire personnel.

“I look forward to visiting with Chief Heavner and his personnel again,” said Congressman McHenry.  “It was last September that I visited Lincolnton Fire Department for a demonstration of the opioid reversal kits they had just outfitted all of their trucks with.  This grant will add three more fire professionals to an already top notch force.”  

A panel of fire experts at DHS awards SAFER grants through a competitive review process.  Congressman McHenry hosts workshops for 10th District EMS and fire departments to help guide personnel through the process and give them an inside view of what the committee looks for.  The workshops are taught by Cherryville Fire Chief Jeff Cash, a nationally recognized expert in his field and former member of DHS’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant review committee.  Since Congressman McHenry and Chief Cash began the program, 10th District EMS and fire departments have consistently won more grants than departments in most of North Carolina’s other Congressional Districts.  

Lincolnton is one of five Tenth District departments to receive SAFER funding thus far during the 2017 cycle with a total of $1,665,388 in funds distributed among those departments. 

Grants will continue to be announced in rounds weekly through the coming months.