Bill to support local firefighters and emergency responders signed into law

A bill to extend federal programs that help local fire departments address staffing needs, purchase equipment, develop fire training and education programs, and improve emergency medical services was signed into law by President Joe Biden Wednesday.

The Fire Grants and Safety Act reauthorizes two federal grant programs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which have provided more than $15.3 million to local fire departments in New Mexico. Those programs were set to expire this year but are now reauthorized through 2030. The bill also reauthorizes the United States Fire Administration (USFA) through 2028.

“New Mexico’s firefighters and first responders are heroes who deserve our full support. I’m proud that our bill is now law — to ensure they have the equipment and personnel they need,” Sen. Martin Heinrich said. “I will keep fighting to deliver for the folks who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.”

The federal programs reauthorized by the legislation are FEMA’s Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Grant Program and the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) Program, as well as the United States Fire Administration (USFA), the lead federal agency for fire data collection, public fire education, fire research and fire service training.

The AFG Program supports the firefighting and emergency response needs of fire departments and non-affiliated emergency medical service organizations. Since 2001, AFG has helped firefighters and other first responders obtain vital equipment, protective gear, emergency vehicles, training and other resources necessary for protecting the public and emergency personnel from fire and related hazards.

Sandoval County Fire Rescue Chief Eric Masterson said that while the grants are incredibly useful for his department, it is a big challenge to secure the grants for fire departments in Sandoval County.

“There's almost 30,000 fire departments across the United States, and I can promise you, each of them have amazing projects and demands and needs that they look at federal funding for, so the fact that Congress and the president passed this and continue that funding moving forward is a huge benefit to all departments across the country, and here in New Mexico as well,” Masterson said. “We're very grateful that Congress moved forward with funding for Sandoval County on the AFG side. This is a firefighter grant we apply for all the time. Both of these grants are incredibly competitive, obviously, with 30,000 departments across the nation. There's still a limited amount of money, but they're incredibly competitive.”

Masterson highlighted the competitiveness of the grants and the importance of augmenting volunteer teams with career staff to support rural areas. Masterson also expressed his support for grants and willingness to continue applying for funding to address the needs of his department.

“I want to say it's been about eight years or so since we got a grant. I've been with the department since 2006 and I've been in leadership for a little over 10 years now, so I'm pretty familiar with the applications that we've been putting in over the last 10 years. But you know, it's been several years since we got an AFG grant outside of COVID. I will say during COVID, we got an AFG grant specific to personal protective equipment, PPE. That was beneficial for our first-line responders. But outside of that gap grant, again, very competitive, and it's been several years since we've gotten one, but we continue to apply every year, whether it's for new equipment, new apparatus or whatever it is that our needs are at that moment, we'll put an application in and see where we're at.”

The SAFER Grant Program provides funding directly to career, volunteer and local fire departments to help them increase or maintain the number of trained "front line" firefighters available in their communities.

“For the SAFER side of things, same kind of concept; it’s very competitive, if not more competitive, because everyone is screaming for personnel,” Masterson said. “You know, volunteers are awesome, they're amazing. But their availability sometimes is limited. And so in Sandoval County, a lot of times we'll use our career staff to supplement our volunteer ranks. Even though right now we are staffed within our funding positions within the department, we are always looking at ways to augment our volunteer teams and support them, especially in the more rural and remote areas of the county. We currently have a application for SAFER that is pending right now. It's been submitted to FEMA.”.

For years, New Mexico has faced severe shortages of firefighters — in Sandoval County and elsewhere. According to the USFA, more than 78% of fire departments in New Mexico are volunteer, and nearly 10% more are mostly volunteer.

Since 2015, the SAFER program has provided federal grants to support hiring and recruitment at local fire departments in Bernalillo County, Albuquerque, Otero County, Rio Rancho, Las Cruces, Hobbs, Bernalillo, San Juan County, the Abiquiu Fire Protection District, and the Mayhill Volunteer Fire Department.

Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue Fire Chief James DeFillippo said his department has been a recipient of the federal SAFER Grant twice, most recently in 2018 when the city received $876,190 over three years to provide a portion of the salaries and benefits for six firefighters/EMT positions.

In 2019, the AFG Program provided $213,455 that paid a portion of the cost to acquire a Tender, which is a fire apparatus that holds 3,000 gallons of water and is capable of responding to areas of the city where fire hydrants may be spread out or not present.

“The primary benefit of these grant programs is that they augment available resources used to address public safety needs,” DeFillippo said. “The department currently has 132 funded firefighter/EMT/paramedic positions of which 132 are filled. We are accepting applications for firefighter cadets for the next training academy taking place October 7 and graduating February 6. The deadline to apply is August 16. Anyone interested can log on to the City of Rio Rancho website and click the Fire and Rescue tab to view and apply.”

Since 2015, the AFG program has provided federal funds for equipment, operations, and safety to local and volunteer departments in Mesilla Roswell, San Juan County, the New Mexico Firefighters Training Academy, Las Cruces, Sandoval County, Doña Ana County, Otero County, Albuquerque, Valencia County, Santa Fe County, Carlsbad, Gallup, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Silver City, Alamogordo, San Miguel County, the Questa Volunteer Fire Department, Los Alamos County, the Datil Fire District, Angel Fire, the Sierra Bonita Rincon Volunteer Fire Department, and Santo Domingo Fire and EMS.