WINNING NARRATIVE 2005



The XXX Fire Department is located 70 miles north west of Minneapolis/St Paul.

Regional Grant Project Description and Budget:
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The XXX Fire Department is pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this grant program.

We are equally as pleased to be submitting this grant for your consideration on the behalf of not only the XXX Fire Department, but also the three(3)Fire Departments of the Cities of AAA, BBB and CCC.

These cities are similar in population, infrastructure and size and belong to a common Mutual Fire Aid Association. Most significantly, three of these four cities are located within and dispatched by the LLL County Sheriff Department.

Recently the LLL County Sheriff Department and the City of RRR elected to upgrade their current VHF and analog 800 MHz communication frequencies to modern digital 800 MHz communication capabilities. This decision was made with respect to Phase III of the State of Minnesota’s implementation of the statewide 800 MHz radio system.

Several new towers have already been put in use. LLL County is the primary dispatching agency for its fire departments and the City of RRR will act as a secondary dispatch center being that it has redundant dispatching capabilities. The 800 MHz radio frequency has been in use in Minnesota’s metro area for some time already and has clearly been proven to be superior to the old VHF systems.

The City of BBB is located just across the Mississippi bridge from CCC in MMM County and as such is a frequent participant in mutual aid with these departments. All of these cities are located within a few miles of each other in the area surrounding the City of RRR, the county seat of LLL County. ALL of them share jurisdictional boundaries.

Collectively, after a risk assessment and analysis a decision was made by the fire departments requesting consideration in this grant to submit together so the desire for interoperability between departments could be expressed.

The primary goal of this request is to realize improved inter-department communication practices for the firefighters and their safety as well as compatible communications between agencies at multi-agency emergency responses.

These practices would be consistent with the priorities of the grant program plus the safety guidelines found in the National Fire Protection Agency’s publications such as 1001, 1500 & 1021 and incident command practices consistent with the Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Technical Colleges system training.

The safety of our firefighters and the public depends on eliminating the gap and having compatible inter-department communications and effective communication with dispatchers and emergency responders from neighboring communities. This regional approach is consistent with the State of Minnesota’s efforts to expand the digital 800 MHz radio system into outstate areas.

The change to 800 MHz by LLL County Law Enforcement has improve communications, but decreased firefighter safety and response efforts at major incidents by leaving the fire service without compatible communications.

This change presents potential communication barriers that could be severely detrimental to firefighter safety until all of the compatibility issues have been identified and resolved.

It is imperative the cities of XXX, AAA, BBB and CCC expedite replacing their VHF radio system so they are compatible with the 800 MHz system as quickly as possible to maintain the level of interoperability these departments currently enjoy.

In the past the cities represented in this grant have all experienced major all hazard events requiring multi-agency responses from departments within the OOO Fire Aid Association. This grant is essential to continuing an effective level of communication between our firefighters, local departments and the 911communications center.

Because of the differing arrangement of apparatus, staffing levels and individual department operating characteristics, the requested equipment & installation costs would be distributed as follows:

XXX (city)::

4 ... Mobile Radios ... @.. $3,619.03 = $14,476.12
12 ... Portable Radios ...@.. $2,794.76 = $33,537.12
8 ... Headsets ...@.. $500.00 = $4,000.00
Sub Total: .... $52,013.24

AAA (city):

7 ... Mobile Radios ...@.. $3,619.03 = $25,333.21
5 ... Portable Radios ...@.. $2,794.76 = $13,973.80

Sub Total: ... $39,307.01

BBB (city)::

6 ... Mobile Radios ...@.. $3,619.03 = $21,714.18
7 ...Portable Radios....@..$2,794.76 = $19,563.32
3 ...Dual Head Mobiles..@..$4,341.44 = $13,024.32
3... Headsets... @...$500.00 = $1,500.00
Sub Total:...$55, 801.82

CCC (city)::

10.. Mobile Radios.... @..$3,619.03 = $36,190.30
14.. Portable Radios.. @..$2,794.76 = $39,126.64
1.. Base Station Console Radio @..$5,535.11 = $5,535.11

Sub Total:.....$80,852.05

Total Equipment & installation Cost=...$227,974.16

Total Regional Project Costs ..= $227,974.00
Required 5% Match .............= $11,399.00
Federal Share .................= $216,575.00



Financial Need:
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The Regional Volunteer Fire Departments receive a small annual budget from their Cities to work with. This revenue is allocated for use in paying our departments operating expenses such as fuel, utilities and maintenance. It does not include money for equipment expenditures.

We seek other sources of revenue through various annual fund raising events. These events are all reliant on the generosity of local residents.

In the past local community and civic organizations have committed themselves to our fire departments fund raising projects with monetary contributions to ensure the safety of the area of which they have members. Working together we can have a successful project.

With the LLL County Sheriff Department’s decision to replace its current VHF dispatching equipment with digital 800 MHz equipment, it left the fire departments served by LLL County with an important decision to make; either replace their existing VHF radios, or rely on a method of system patching in order to communicate between the differing frequencies.

Frequency patching, while workable, creates a greater possibility of communications failure while operating at emergency scenes and contributes to signal misinterpretation by departments that may be operating at separate scenes simultaneously while within each other’s reception area.

With the budget climate currently being experienced by most of the cities in LLL County, it is improbable for any city to position itself to replace its entire communication infrastructure at one time without assistance. Recently a Homeland Security Grant was received by LLL County and distributed among the cities within the county. This assistance was enough to provide for about half of the actual communication equipment actually needed by the departments.

Because of the County’s abrupt decision to change, it could be several years before any of the cities represented by this grant can dedicate funding to purchase enough equipment to provide immediate system-wide communications integration with other area departments.

The cities represented in this application are willing to appropriate the specified grant participation requirement. Without assistance it would most likely require several budget cycles before enough funding could be provided by each individual city to replace the obsolete equipment.


Cost/Benefit:
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By receiving this grant and this equipment we can remove the cause of the conditions and problems which are negatively affecting our ability to provide mission critical services.

A favorable response to this regional grant request would ensure the cities of XXX, AAA, BBB and CCC could improve communications with each other at mutual aid responses. Because of the importance of this issue for each department, a combined grant request was jointly decided upon.

The importance of agency interoperability and communication consistency cannot be separated. Without one, the other is lost. The benefit for this area would be that the City of XXX’s firefighters would be safer because the dispatching agency would have clear & direct communication with XXX Fire.

The XXX Officers would have better communication with their firefighters because of the reduction of outside noises and competition by the headsets. Interior operations could be separated from exterior operations so there wouldn’t be any time lost in waiting for the frequency to clear. The Rapid Intervention Team could also stay better informed by having uninterrupted communication with the fireground officer.

These improvements would be greatest exemplified at multi jurisdiction calls (mutual aid) because rather than all of the departments trying to talk on a few frequencies, entire talk groups could be created for the task they are assigned to do. In general, this grant would result in improved interoperability with neighboring communities, increase our level of OSHA and NFPA compliance and bolster our on-scene effectiveness. On scene firefighter safety would be substantially increased through better communications.

Statement of Effect:
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Daily operations of the XXX Fire Department along with the other partners in the regional project are anticipated to be significantly improved if we are successful with the application of this grant.

LLL County and RRR, our primary and secondary dispatching agencies anticipate switching frequencies during the middle of this year.

Collectively the cities of XXX, AAA, BBB and CCC will be able to train together alongside LLL County and RRR to establish best practice operating guidelines for communications. Having standardized and compatible communications equipment is critical to both our own department’s welfare and the mutual aid infrastructure.

While sufficient communication with our dispatch center is possible if we did not join with the other cities participating in the expansion of the Minnesota digital 800 system, forecasting what the spectrum of problems could or will be is very difficult. System patching along with endangering firefighter safety by not having the correct radio or frequency available when it is needed are both critical infrastructure issues.

Recently XXX requested the aid of two Fire Aid Association fire departments at a working commercial fire. Communications had to occur face to face on the fireground because the responding departments did not operate on the same radio frequency. Hopefully this grant will correct that problem.

We respectfully ask that you consider and appreciate the uniqueness of this grant application in that it is for the betterment of not only one department, but a consortium of departments operating within the OOO Fire Aid Association. This association is composed of contractual agreements with 14 fire departments, and an ambulance service.

The operational area of the association extends to areas in three separate counties and multiple townships. Other fire departments within this organization have also submitted for your consideration in the hopes of standardizing our communications and incident command practices throughout the association and we support their applications as well.

The City of XXX and our partners are deeply grateful for your efforts in this grant process and is sincere in its application.

Again, thank you for your efforts in considering this regional request and we will optimistically await your reply.