The Fayetteville Fire Department has been awarded a $49,659 grant from FEMA for the purpose of boosting fire prevention, Fayetteville Fire Chief Paul Hildreth reported at tonight’s village board meeting.
Hildreth said the fire department will use the Fire Prevention and Safety grant funds to provide residents with smoke detectors, CO2 detectors and bed shakers at no cost, do free home inspections and educate residents on fire safety. FEMA will provide $47,177, or 95 percent of the funds, if the village of Fayetteville provides the remaining 5 percent.
Hildreth said the fire department has offered free home inspections and smoke and CO2 detectors to residents in recent years, but added: “This grant will help fund what we’ve been doing, and kind of enhance it.”
The board voted unanimously to accept the funds.
“It’s a good program,” said Mayor Mark Olson. “We do have an aging population. We do meet voluntarily now with people who call the station and they’ll say, ‘I need this,’ and we’ll do it. We’ll put a smoke detector in there. But this program is going to be for the whole fire district.”
Fire department looks to hire part-time paramedics
The fire department’s call volume for ambulance rides to the Northeast Medical Center in Fayetteville is up 30 percent from last year, Hildreth said. From January to Aug. 8 of this year, the department provided 699 rides to the medical center, compared to 700 rides for the entire year in 2011, he said.
Hildreth told the board that he’d like to hire some part-time paramedics at $15 an hour to help lighten the load for his staff of fire paramedics, which consists of 12 career EMTS and one volunteer. The board passed a motion to allow Hildreth to start interviewing candidates.
“We’re looking into hiring part-time paramedics only, not fire paramedics, simply because of our call volume,” he said.
Route 5 roadwork delayed
Work on Route 5 in the village of Fayetteville has once again been pushed back.
The state Department of Transportation’s replacement of the Brook’s Bridge culvert, first scheduled for July and then pushed back to late August, is now slated to begin Sept. 20, Olson said.
The project entails closing a four-mile stretch of Route 5, with the official detour leading drivers on a six-mile course to Green Lakes Road in Mycenaue, then to North Manlius Road, and back to Route 5 near the Fayetteville Fire Department.
Ned Campbell can be reached at [email protected].
