Mike Thompson United States Congressman - First District of California

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Press Release

Rep. Thompson Announces $193K Grant to Improve Local Emergency Preparedness

New equipment will allow area fire departments to communicate more effectively during emergencies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, October 12, 2006

WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Rep. Mike Thompson announced that five local fire departments, including Davis, Dixon, UC Davis, West Sacramento and Woodland, will receive a federal grant of $193,680. The grant will be used to strengthen capabilities of local first responders by creating a highly-coordinated communication system among the five fire departments. This very competitive grant was one of 19 awarded to fire departments and EMS organizations nationwide by the Department of Homeland Security.

In response to the grant notification, Thompson and Fire Chiefs Rose Conroy (City of Davis), Ric Dorris (City of Dixon), Mike Cahill (City of Woodland), Joe Perry (UC Davis) and Fred Postel (City of West Sacramento) issued the following statements:

Rep. Thompson: “Our local fire departments are often the first line of defense for a wide range of public health and safety threats, and they have always done an excellent job at keeping our residents safe. However, as we’ve seen in the management of disasters across the nation, it is absolutely critical that first responders be able to communicate during a large-scale emergency. This grant will provide them with the state-of-the-art communications equipment they need to be prepared for all types of emergencies. Their efforts deserve our constant appreciation.”

Joint Statement from Fire Chiefs: “Davis, West Sacramento, Dixon, Woodland and the University of California Fire Departments applied for a regional, multi-jurisdictional interoperability project to enhance our communications. We have been notified by Congressman Mike Thompson’s office that our grant for $193,680 has been approved. These five fire departments have a long history of working together as Automatic Aid partners. This project will address the problem of incompatible and insufficient communications equipment and limited, fragmented funding. The equipment purchased through this grant project will allow these five automatic aid partners to improve emergency scene radio communications and firefighter safety. The Fire Chiefs of West Sacramento, Woodland, Dixon, UC Davis and City of Davis are very pleased our grant application has been approved and look forward to implementing the equipment to improve communications in the field. We would be unable to achieve this goal without the grant funds provided by the Fire Act Grant from the federal government.”

The grant, which was written by Juli Hawthorne, the Davis Grants Coordinator in consultation with the five fire chiefs, will be used to purchase eight portable 800 MHZ radios with accessories (batteries, chargers, etc.) to be split between the Fire Departments of Woodland and Dixon so that they can communicate with the Fire Departments of West Sacramento, Davis and UC Davis. They also intend to purchase and install 25 mobile data computers or (MDCs) for first out fire engines, trucks and dedicated command vehicles linked to the regional computer-aided dispatch. These will be distributed to all but Woodland Fire Dept., which already has MDCs from a previous grant. This grant will also provide for immediate digital/data communication for incident scene management including secure unit-to-unit communication and detailed site data for firefighters in the field (building floor plans, specific hazards: building or chemical inventories, location of fire hydrants, etc.).