Orange County has received a $9.9 million federal grant to beef up fire protection by adding a fourth firefighter to three-person engine and ladder companies.
The grant, requiring a $6.18 million county match, will be spread over three years and assumes the firefighters will be paid an annual salary of about $55,000 with another $30,000 in benefits.
The 63 new firefighters will be added through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s SAFER grants program. The acronym stands for Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said the grant should help reduce the amount of time it takes Orange County firefighters to get inside a burning building.
“They have to have four people on scene in order to go in if it’s a true fire they’re fighting,” he said.
Demings said the firefighter-safety policy sometimes means waiting on a second emergency vehicle to arrive at a fire scene.
A U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration policy commonly known as “two-in, two-out” mandates that firefighters shouldn’t go alone into a dangerous fire incident. Firefighters entering a burning building should maintain voice or visual contact with one another at all times. Firefighters outside should be ready to initiate a rescue if those inside run into trouble.
FEMA announced last month it would award more than 370 SAFER grants to aid fire departments and volunteer firefighter organizations across the U.S.
Orange County received the largest of 10 SAFER grants awarded in Florida.
Orange County Fire Rescue boasts 1,463 employees, including 1,239 uniformed personnel. Both figures include the soon-to-be-hired firefighters.
Elsewhere in the region, Lake County was awarded about $1.7 million; Volusia County received about $1.2 million; and Groveland in Lake County got $1 million, according to FEMA’s website.
Orange County recently approved budget also included funding for another 27 firefighters in fiscal year 2019-20, which began Oct. 1.
The agency answers about 350 calls a day — mostly emergency medical calls, according to its most recent annual report.
The new crews allowed Orange County Fire Rescue to begin staffing four new around-the-clock ambulance/transport units.
In their first three days, the units responded to more than 50 emergency calls, according to the agency’s Twitter feed.
To fill the new slots, the county has posted job listings on mycareers.ocfl.net.
The fire agency provides fire rescue and emergency medical services within the 800 square miles of unincorporated Orange County and four municipalities.
Orange County Fire Rescue has 42 community-based fire stations with two new stations planned to open in 2020.
It serves a population of about 900,000 residents in its service area, a figure which doesn’t include the estimated 500,000 tourists visiting the Orlando area daily.
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