XXX County’s
fire protection comes from 11 departments responding in 11 different
jurisdictions. We are extremely proud of the 280 firefighters who
provide quality fire protection and endless hours of volunteer time
serving our communities.
The XXX Fire
Department, which has accepted the roll as host applicant, is a
paid-per-call fire department responding from one centrally-located
fire station with forty-five firefighters and three full time support
staff including the fire chief. XXX is located 100 miles west
of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area as a predominantly
agricultural-based regional city. As defined by the State of
Minnesota, regional cities are those that provide medical treatment
facilities, interconnected transportation systems, additional
infrastructure and shopping and employment opportunities to smaller
out-lying communities.
Located in XXX
is Jennie-O Foods, the county’s largest employer. Jennie-O
produces turkeys from the breeder to the table and also ships product
internationally. XXX is also home to the 2nd
busiest rail yard in Minnesota which runs through the center of our
community and supplies rail transportation to the east and west coasts.
Within XXX
County lie seven major highways: County Highway 4, State Highway 23 and
U.S. Highway 71connecting the communities to the north and south and
State Highways 7, 9 and 55 and U.S. Highway 12 connecting the
communities to the east and west. U.S. Highway 12 also connects
the east and west coasts and stretches through the center of XXX.
The Highway 12 communication corridor has been
identified by the Minnesota State Radio Board as critical
infrastructure for interoperable communication throughout the State.
Our surrounding
region also relies on the services provided by the Technical Rescue
Team and Hazardous Emergency Assistance Team which are housed at the
XXX Fire Department and comprised of members from multiple fire and
EMS agencies throughout the county. In addition, the XXX Fire
Department houses a State decontamination trailer that is used by 74
agencies in the Lake Region. This unit can also be called upon
for larger scale emergencies within the 5-state area of Wisconsin,
Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota.
Project Description and Budget:
The objective of
this proposal is to build on the trunked radio system that has already
received significant dollars invested by the State of Minnesota and
Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Radio Board. Our project would
link XXX County (which is currently in Phase III of the State’s
process) with Stearns County and the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan
area. This trunked system will allow interoperable communications
among our local, regional, State and Federal emergency
responders.
The current system
in place in XXX County is an analog VHF system using multiple
receiver sites. These receiver sites do allow portables to talk
back to the Communication Center (Dispatch), but the channels
predominately used by the county are not repeater channels. This
means when a fire truck leaves the station, the Communication Center
may be able to hear them; however, their station and/or other fire
fighters not in simplex range cannot hear them. Only one repeater
channel is available to the fire service in our county and is shared
with law enforcement, 6 ambulance services, and the 11 fire
departments.
Our primary fire
channel is used for paging. We use this channel to page 6
ambulance services, 11 fire departments, 6 first responder agencies and
a county-wide rescue squad. Additionally, we use this channel to
activate our community emergency warning sirens. Due to the
importance of these pages and the increase in call volume over the
years, having regular fire traffic operating on this frequency has
begun to pose safety issues. XXX County obtained 3
additional frequencies for fire ground operations. Each town in
the county shares one of these frequencies to use as their primary fire
ground channel. These frequencies we received are licensed for
“mobile only” so they cannot be put into a base station at our
Communication Center for monitoring. As a result, communications
from the scene must to go to the incident commander, who uses a
different channel to relay the information to the Communication Center.
By joining the
State’s trunked radio system, not only would firefighters be able to
talk to each other on the fire ground with a clear digital signal
(compared to analog which is susceptible to weak and scratchy signals),
the Communication Center would be able to monitor fire stations and
firefighters who are normally out of range. This will be a huge
benefit during mutual aid incidents and in rural areas when there are
longer distances to shuttle water to the scene.
The system will also
allow talk groups to be set up for each department. This prevents
departments that may be training from interfering with their
neighboring departments who may be responding to a call. The
Communication Center will be able to visually see who is calling
in. This can be a valuable tool for the dispatcher, especially
during multi-agency emergencies and possible mayday events.
In efforts to
achieve this interoperability, we are requesting $910,436 in Federal
funds. The fire departments within XXX County will
contribute an additional $101,159 for a total project budget amounting
to $1,011,595. Funds will be used for the acquisition of a
trunked radio system and equipment to be used in conjunction with our
current VHF system as the trunked system currently has no paging
capabilities. In addition, training on the proper use and
maintenance of the equipment will be provided to each agency according
to Statewide Radio Board recommendations.
The XXX Fire
Department is pleased to participate in the Fire Act grant program once
again and we are appreciative of the opportunity to act as the host
agency on behalf of 10 additional XXX County fire departments and
1 Swift County fire department (listed below).
Regional Partners: Number of firefighters
XXX: 25All of these cities,
with the exception of XXX, are similar in population,
infrastructure and size and belong to the XXX County Mutual Aid
Association. A note of significance is that all of these departments
can be dispatched by the XXX County Sheriff’s Office, which is
the central PSAP for XXX County.
Having met with the
County Fire Chiefs, Emergency Managers, Communications Director and the
County Sheriff, a decision was made collectively to submit a regional
application so that our desires and the objectives of Homeland
Presidential Directives 5 and 8 for interoperable communications
between agencies could be achieved. As stated earlier, our
regional approach for this grant request is consistent with the Phase
III build out of the State of Minnesota’s statewide trunked radio
system and will allow us to expand to a digital trunked radio system
throughout XXX County and provide the needed conduit in the event
of a Regional, State or Federal incident happening within our County
borders.
The trunked radio
system we are proposing is already in use throughout Minnesota.
It has been the focus of the Governor of Minnesota’s interoperable
radio communications plan which will provide the funding for the upkeep
and maintenance of the system.
The system will also
be consistent with current APCO Project 25 standards and the FCC’s 2013
narrow-banding requirements. It should be noted that XXX
County has a self-imposed narrow-banding uniformity date of 2010.
This has caused the need for several agencies throughout the county to
upgrade their radios. By joining the statewide trunked radio
system, we would meet XXX County’s uniformity date as well as the
APCO Project 25 standards.
Stearns County
(located just north of XXX County) recently upgraded their
communication frequencies to modern digital trunked communication
capabilities. Departments within XXX County who share a
mutual aid agreement with those in Stearns County now have no means of
communicating with each other. This poses serious firefighter
safety issues. It continues to be mind-boggling that since 9-11-2001,
firefighters operating in XXX, Minnesota are still unable to
communicate with our mutual aid partners 25 miles away in Paynesville,
Minnesota.
Two of the fire
departments in northern XXX County currently have radio coverage
issues that prevent them from being able to communicate between their
fire stations and the incident scene. This problem is encountered
on incident scenes as close as 4 miles from their fire stations.
The XXX County
Sheriff’s Office’s is considering the replacement of its current VHF
dispatching equipment with a digital trunked system. Although it
is probable that the County Dispatch Center will maintain the VHF
system for paging purposes, the restrictions of narrow-banding may
cause situations in which existing radio frequencies are not available
for the fire service. This leaves the fire departments throughout
the county with an important decision to make; we must either replace
our existing VHF radios or rely on a method of system “patching” in
order to communicate with our mutual aid partners or upgrade to a
fully-trunked radio system. Frequency patching, while workable, creates
a greater possibility of communication failure and contributes to
weakened signals for agencies that may be operating on separate scenes
simultaneously within each other’s reception area.
We as emergency
responders continue to stress the significance of improved
interoperable department communication practices for firefighters as
well as compatible communication during multi-agency emergency
responses. These practices are consistent with the safety
guidelines found in the National Fire Protection Agency’s publications
1001, 1021 and 1500 and the incident command practices of the
Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Technical College
system.
We feel it is
imperative that the cities within XXX County and surrounding
communities expedite replacing their VHF radio systems with a
fully-compatible trunked system in order to maintain critical levels of
interoperability. In the past, the agencies represented in this
project have all experienced major events requiring multi-agency
responses. The funds we are requesting are essential to
continuing an effective level of communication between our
firefighters, local police departments, emergency medical agencies and
the Sheriff’s communications center.
It should also be
noted that the XXX County Sheriff’s Office, XXX County
Board of Commissioners and all City/Township Councils and Fire Boards
have written resolutions of support for our application.
Additionally we have the support of our local Senators and
Representatives.
Below is an outline of our project’s budget:
190 Portable (Handheld) Radios @ $2869 $545,110With varying
department operating characteristics, staffing levels and apparatus
owned, the requested equipment will be distributed as follows:
In the event our
request is not fully funded, the XXX County Fire Chiefs
Association along with the XXX County Sheriff and the XXX
County Dispatch will determine each fire department’s needs and
distribute radio equipment accordingly in order to maintain
interoperability.
Financial Need:
Because of XXX
County’s consideration to upgrade their radio system, it could be
several years before any of our regional partners would have the
dedicated funding to purchase adequate radio equipment to provide for
the immediate system-wide communication integration with other area
departments.
Averaged out, our
proposed project would cost each agency $84,299 which exceeds several
of the Cities’ entire annual budgets. Diverting such large
financial resources would jeopardize day-to-day operations and most
importantly, firefighter safety. With the large scale of this
project, it is improbable and an overwhelming burden for the
departments to replace their entire communications system at one time
without financial assistance. Each of these departments has the
means to appropriate their specified local share. It would, however
require several budget cycles before enough funding could be provided
by each city to independently replace their obsolete radio equipment
that is non-compliant with narrow-banding or trunked system
requirements.
Although XXX
County has experienced an overall decrease in population, continued
commercial growth has lead to an increase in the demand for emergency
services.
Cost/Benefit:
Simply stated, a
trunked radio system will improve communications, promote
interoperability among emergency responders, increase firefighter
safety and streamline response efforts at major multi-agency incidents.
A favorable response
to our project would ensure that the fire departments within XXX
County could improve communications amongst each other and with other
regional and statewide partners.
Our proposal will
enhance the communication between 280 firefighters and improve our
services to 41,398 citizens throughout XXX County alone.
This amounts to a mere $24 per person. These figures do not,
however, include emergency responders and citizens throughout the State
who will also benefit from the statewide trunked radio system.
A trunked radio
system will result in improvements best exemplified during multi-agency
emergencies (mutual aid). In 2006, the XXX Fire Department
received mutual aid on 20% of all structure fires and provided mutual
aid to area fire departments on eight occasions. The
trunked radio system would enable our mutual aid partners to be fully
apprised of the situation upon their arrival allowing for a
well-coordinated fire attack.
Rather than several
departments attempting to communicate on limited frequencies, separate
talk groups could be created for each individual task. Currently
four departments share the same radio frequency. In the event of
a major incident, air time is premium. 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.
Statement of Effect:
Daily operations of
the XXX County Fire Departments are anticipated to be
significantly improved when we are successful with the application of
this grant. We again stress the importance of interoperability
among our local fire departments and neighboring counties.
Collectively, the
cities of XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, and XXX will
be able to train together alongside XXX County to establish best
practice operating guidelines for communications. Having standardized
and compatible communications equipment is critical to both our own
department’s welfare and that of our mutual aid infrastructure.
While sufficient
communication with our dispatch center is possible if we did not join
the other cities participating in the expansion of Minnesota’s trunked
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.
We respectfully
request 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 XXX
County Mutual Aid Association. This association is composed
of contractual agreements with 18 fire departments, and 6 ambulance
services. The operational area of the association extends to areas in
three separate counties and multiple townships.
The City of XXX and our partners in this application are deeply grateful for this opportunity and are sincere in our application. We thank you for your efforts and patiently await your reply.