Fire Dept. special operations benefit from grant funding

The Warwick Fire Department is able to provide unique, lifesaving services to Warwick and its surrounding communities – including a specialized rescue team, a 660-gallon fire foam response truck, a hazmat unit and three emergency response boats that patrol the area’s waterways.

While these special services cost significant amounts of money in training, equipment purchasing and maintenance, Warwick has received a large amount of support from state and federal governments in the form of various grants to help keep these resources available, not only to its citizens, but citizens of surrounding communities as well.

“These teams, they’re not used every day, but we use them for what we call the low-occurrence, high-risk incidents,” said Warwick Fire Chief, James McLaughlin Friday. “If you need them, it’s good to have them.”

McLaughlin announced that the Warwick Fire Department received a $50,000 grant from the State Homeland Security Program in order to maintain equipment used by their Technical Rescue Team, as well as conduct monthly training exercises for the team, saving taxpayer dollars as a result.

The Technical Rescue Team is the result of a 2015 $1.1 million Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant, which enabled Warwick to purchase $250,000 in specialized equipment used to safely conduct rescue operations in situations that would be impossible with traditional equipment and methods. The money also provided 400 hours of training for 36 firefighters that now make up the special rescue team.

The new, 12-month grant is split between Warwick and Middletown, which also received $50,000, in order to create regional response units on either side of Narragansett Bay. The grant is divided, 50/50, between maintaining the equipment used in specialized rescue operations and continuing training for the team members.

“This funding offsets the cost to the taxpayer,” said McLaughlin, who reported that routine training exercises, like the one conducted on the roof of Sports Authority at Warwick Mall earlier this month, costs $1,000 to $1,200 in off-duty firefighter overtime pay, depending on the number of on versus off-duty participants. “The big thing about this is they can keep their skills up or get future equipment without adding to the local cost.”

McLaughlin said that Warwick, as the host community for the West side of the bay, will be able to eventually extend their training and equipment to firefighting departments in surrounding communities.

“[The grant] allows us the ability to do the training and we have the equipment here so we can respond 24/7, 365 if there’s a need, and it’s also going to give the opportunity for members of other departments to become part of the team and be a part of it as well,” he said. “It’s kind of like a regional team, but we’re the host community so all the funding goes through us.”

McLaughlin and Mayor Scott Avedisian said that, while it cannot be totally assured, they expect the grant will be renewed annually. They confirmed that Warwick could relieve itself of its duties as the host community for technical rescue operations if the grant funding dries up or isn’t renewed.

McLaughlin said that, hypothetically, if the department does not need the full $25,000 for equipment maintenance, they can make a request to the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency (RIEMA, the state affiliate of FEMA) to allocate the remainder of that money to go towards more training exercises.

“Practice makes perfect,” he said, in regards to why the funding for continued training is important, adding that the department is striving to conduct a technical rescue training event at least once a month.

Marine response boat secures funding as well

The $50,000 grant compounds with another grant secured by the Warwick Fire Department from the Oil Spill Prevention, Administration and Response (OSPAR), worth $35,793, to maintain one of their specialized emergency response boats which was purchased with grant funds back in 2009 as well as provide training for personnel to operate the boat.

“We’re delighted because if something went down, it was on us to repair it,” McLaughlin said of repairing the boat. “And then to operate the boat, it’s not a normal boat. It’s a jet-driven boat and it’s not like getting into a regular boat. You have to really train these guys, especially with the fire pump on there.”

That 35-foot emergency response boat is the biggest and best equipped of three such emergency boats operated by the Warwick Fire Department, which are strategically located around local waters to be able to respond to emergencies within a short amount of time.

According to McLaughlin, these boats made an average of 106 responses between FY 2012 and FY 2015. In FY 2016, when one boat was unavailable the entire year due to maintenance issues and another was unavailable for three months, they still responded to 50 on-water calls. Numbers for FY 2017 were not available yet.

“We’re really happy that we got this funding this year for both the boat and for this technical rescue team so there’s no cost to the taxpayers,” McLaughlin said. “We’re getting the equipment and the training but we’re fortunate that it’s not digging into the pockets of the taxpayers.”