WICS, ABC 20 in Springfield, reports that five Illinois fire departments are getting FEMA grant money;
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin has announced a nearly $1.4 million federal investment in five Illinois fire departments.
The funds are going to fire departments in Bellevue, Wellington, Evanston, Justice and Amboy. The money is for operations and safety activities.
The cull article is HERE.
#1 by Mikel on July 27, 2012 - 12:43 AM
Evanston is ordering a new pierce engine and a new ambulance according to the city website anyone have specs on either vehicle?
#2 by Ryan on February 24, 2012 - 2:40 PM
Evanston was awarded a grant for equipment. They can only purchase equipment they specified in their grant. Unfortunately, they cannot use the money towards a vehcile purchase.
#3 by Bill Post on February 23, 2012 - 10:41 PM
Chris that’s a very good question. I had read about a year ago that Evanston was planning on getting a new tractor for their Truck 23 (on the north side of Evanston) and they would use it to pull the current trailer after some possible rehab work. As you know they have a totally new rig for Truck 22 for the southern half of town and their engine fleet is in pretty good shape with Engine 23 getting a new Pierce rig within the last year and a half. Their oldest front line Engine is at Engine 25 which is using a pretty decent looking hand me down rig from Engine 21. Their Squad 21 is only about 5 ot 6 years old and is expected to last a long time as it doesn’t get used that often and it is normally manned by an engine company that gets detailed to operate it if needed.
Less then 2 years ago their new city manager had tried taking Truck 23 out of service and relocating Truck 22 to Station 21 while laying off 2 firefighters. He was going to make their Ambulance 23 (a jump company) into a full-time unit. The Evanston fire fighters union was able to prevail before a judge and get their second Truck (23) put back in service and the two firefighters rehired. What Evanston really needs in my opinion is to add a few more Paramedic/firefighters to their payroll so that they could run their Ambulance 23 as a full-time unit while being able to keep Truck 23 in service.
Evanston Ambulance 23 only gets put in service when Ambulances 21 and 22 are on runs and then they have to take Engine 23 out of service to run Ambulance 23. Until about 2 years ago, Truck 23 would be taken out of service to put Ambulance 23 in service.
#4 by Brian on February 23, 2012 - 6:40 PM
Depends, there are several things the grants can be requested for
#5 by chris Dryer on February 23, 2012 - 6:28 PM
Any one know what Evanston will do with the money? I would think that another tiller would be in the works.
#6 by Martin on February 23, 2012 - 6:15 PM
What would Roberts Park use the money exactly for?