Bazetta Fire Department receives $103,894 grant for equipment

Staff report

BAZETTA

Bazetta Township will use a $103,894 federal award delivered Friday by U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan to upgrade firefighters’ equipment.

The money comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant program.

Bazetta will use the money to buy 12 sets of turnout gear, the clothing firefighters wear when they respond to emergencies. Their current gear is at the end of its useful life.

The money will also purchase 10 sets of breathing equipment – 22 masks and a dryer that completes the task of washing and drying turnout gear.

It takes three to four days to dry turnout gear without a dryer, fire Chief Dennis Lewis said. Using a dryer reduces that to two to four hours.

Funding from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation provided the funding for the washer/extractor last year. Washing the gear is necessary to avoid cancer risks associated with firefighting and to protect firefighters from blood-borne pathogens, Lewis said.

The department’s new gear will arrive in a couple months.

Federal funding such as this enables communities to have equipment “to protect the firefighters and residents of their communities,” said Ryan of Howland, D-13th, adding communities don’t have revenues they used to have for firefighting equipment upgrades.