Maine Chief Shouts for Joy After Getting Grant for Air Packs

ANDOVER, Maine -- Fire Chief Robert Dixon shouted for joy Monday afternoon on suddenly learning his department was awarded more than $146,000 for new air-packs.

"Wahoo! Wow!" Dixon said of the $146,300 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, or FIRE Act.

His father, retired Andover fire Chief Ken Dixon, wrote the grant application.

Andover's share is a 5 percent match, which is $7,000 and change, Ken Dixon, said. He believes the matching funds will come from the Fire Department budget.

"It's going to replace what we currently have, and it's going to allow us to better work with the River Valley, because we'll be getting the same kind that Rumford has," Rob Dixon said.

"So when Rumford comes to Andover, now they can wear our packs, because they're the same."

Ken Dixon said the grant will buy 20 to 22 new self-contained breathing apparatuses, enabling Andover to continue operating its Fire Department.

He said the department got some new SCBA equipment about 20 years ago that were made by Kearns.

Since then, the manufacturers of those apparatuses have gone out of business. Some air bottles had a 20-year life span and are starting to run out, but the bottles with the initial 15-year span are already gone.

Additionally, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health discontinued its certification of the old SCBAs.

"So, it basically put us out of business," Ken Dixon said.

Without certified air gear, they couldn't enter burning buildings to rescue people or go inside to extinguish fires.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security denied Ken Dixon's first grant-writing attempt to get new SCBAs for Andover.

"I think they ran out of money before they got to me," he said. "But this year, I tried again and it's right at the top of the list, so good! Outstanding!

"Because if we hadn't got that (grant), we'd have probably been out of business, because there's nobody servicing them and you can't buy spare bottles for them or anything else," Ken Dixon said.

"We're starting to run out of bottles, so we'd be standing on the street, because there wouldn't be any internal stuff."

Ken Dixon, who retired three years ago, still volunteers and writes grants for the department.

On Monday afternoon, the Dixons reacted with surprise after learning that U.S. Sen. Susan Collins alerted Maine media about the award via email.

Normally, they said the Department of Homeland Security notifies department officials by email to learn if they'll accept an awarded grant. That didn't happen this time.

Collins is the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. She's also the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, helped create the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, and is fighting to continue it.

"These grants are awarded to fire departments across the United States to increase the effectiveness of firefighting operations, firefighter health and safety programs, emergency medical service programs, Fire Prevention and Safety programs, and to purchase new fire equipment," she said.

Ken Dixon said he thought the Department of Homeland Security wasn't going to OK his second attempt, because he'd also written a simultaneous grant application for a quick attack/brush truck.

"The truck got shot down real quick," he said. "We really need it to get into the Surplus areas where they don't have nice paved roads and everything.

"We're getting a lot of places set back off the road now, like the Poland Subdivision and some of these other places up in Sawyer Notch and you really don't want to take a $300,000 truck up," he said.

A brush truck, he added, would be good for woods fires and getting to backcountry structure fires.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service