Grant Snapshot
Bogota, New Jersey Category: Fire Operations & Firefighter Safety	Amount: $22,500 Overview: Not Available

By MICHELLE HAN
Courtesy The Bergen Record

BOGOTA - The volunteer Fire Department will get $22,500 from the federal government to buy equipment to refill firefighter [breathing air] packs, officials announced Tuesday.

The grant is part of the Firefighter Investment and Response Enhancement program sponsored by Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, and co-sponsored by Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Fair Lawn, several years ago. First proposed as a $5 billion, five-year effort, the program started last year with $100 million. But the initiative got a lift after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and $360 million was slated for this year.

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Bogota, with about 80 volunteer firefighters, requested the grant so it could have its own system to refill [breathing air] tanks that firefighters carry, said Battalion Chief Lou Kern, who wrote the grant application. In the past, firefighters have had to take empty tanks to Teaneck or Hackensack and wait several hours while they are refilled, Kern said. The department has been lobbying for money for the equipment for several years, he said.

The total cost of purchasing the equipment, installing it, and training firefighters on how to use it will be $25,000, Kern said, with 10 percent of the cost funded by the borough or through fund raising.

More than 19,500 fire departments nationwide requested money, and the government will hand out grants to 5,500 of them by the end of the year.

Kern said he was grateful to Rothman's office for hosting a winter meeting in Bogota, where a representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave a workshop on grant-writing.