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Friday, February 3, 2012
The Shrewsbury Volunteer Fire Company was notified this morning by FEMA a regional grant request submitted in 2011 for the amount of $264,950 was accepted and approved. This grant request is for portable and mobile radios for fire apparatus.
The Shrewsbury Vol. FD along with the Rose Fire Company of New Freedom, Glen Rock Hose and Ladder Co., and the Eureka Fire Company of Stewartstown joined forces and applied jointly for new radio equipment that is necessary to communicate with out of state fire departments. Our departments, located in York County, PA use a digital trunked radio system that is incompatible with radio systems used in Maryland. Our departments run first alarm and greater assignments into Maryland as well as receiving aid from Maryland fire companies into Pennsylvania. We have relied on older style radios kept on our apparatus to communicate with the Maryland fire departments. In February, the older radios we use will no longer be functional due to upgrades in the Maryland fire communications system.
In a proactive approach Shrewsbury, New Freedom, Glen Rock and Stewartstown fire companies applied jointly to purchase new P25 digital Motorola Radios that will function on the radio systems for Baltimore, Harford, and Carroll Counties in Maryland and allow us to once again speak directly to their fire department units and personnel. Without these radios our departments relied on transmissions to our dispatcher, then relayed to the Maryland county we were responding to over a mutual aid channel, then relayed by that Maryland county dispatch center to the fire units on the scene. This process is too time consuming and potentially life threatening to our firefighters. The grant awarded today will give our four departments direct communications to the Maryland fire departments we respond with.
The four fire companies involved in this regional grant are extremely pleased with the outcome and wish to thank our congressional members who assisted us in receiving it. Our departments have been committed to the safety of our personnel when on emergency responses and this grant will directly affect our personnel and increase their survivability during emergency responses into Maryland.
