Kent-based Puget Sound Fire increased staffing earlier this year on two of its ladder trucks to four-person crews from three-person crews after the agency received a $3.4 million federal grant.
“Four-person staffing on ladder companies allows for critical fire ground activities to be completed in a more timely manner,” according to an email from Puget Sound Fire spokesperson Pat Pawlak.
Pawlak said a study by National Institute of Standards and Technology found that four-person crews were able to complete 22 essential firefighting and rescue tasks in a typical residential structure 25% faster than three person crews.
“The tasks that ladder companies are expected to complete in a fire include search and rescue, laddering the building, forcible entry and ventilation,” Pawlak said. “This not only provides better service delivery to the communities we serve, it increases firefighter safety.”
The larger crews started Jan. 5 on Ladder 374, based on Kent’s East Hill at 24611 116th Ave. SE, and on Ladder 346 in SeaTac at 3521 S. 170th St.
Puget Sound Fire applied for a Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The grant is for three years and pays for eight firefighter positions to cover the ladder truck shifts, Pawlak said.
“Unlike other SAFER grants, in this grant, FEMA has waived the cost share requirement,” Pawlak said.
(SAFER) was created to provide funding directly to fire departments and volunteer firefighter organizations to help them increase or maintain the number of trained, “front line” firefighters available in their communities, according to the FEMA website.
The goal of SAFER is to enhance the local fire departments’ abilities to comply with staffing, response and operational standards established by the National Fire Protection Association.
Puget Sound Fire is looking at options to increase staffing for its third ladder truck, Ladder 351, in Tukwila, to four-person ladder truck, Pawlak said. The agency recently applied for a SAFER grant to fund that program but the grant was not awarded.
According to the SAFER fiscal year 2023 update, FEMA made 191 grants totaling $360 million. Puget Sound Fire received the $3.4 million grant in 2023.
Puget Sound Fire also received a $1.5 million SAFER grant in 2020 to hire firefighters and a total of six grants since 2015. The $3.4 million grant is the highest the agency has received. Puget Sound Fire serves the cities of Kent, Covington, Maple Valley, Tukwila and SeaTac.
SAFER grant programs received $324 million in fiscal year 2024, $36 million less than it received in 2023 from Congress, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council. That group requested a $405 million SAFER budget in 2025.
In July 2024, President Joe Biden signed into law the Fire Grants and Safety Act, according to the Congressional Fire Services Institute, a nonprofit group that educates members of Congress about needs and challenges for fire and emergency services programs. That bill reauthorized funding for the SAFER grant program through fiscal year 2028 and extended the sunset date for the program to Sept. 30, 2030.
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