Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

NCFPD accepts SAFER award for volunteer firefighter recruitment and retention

The North County Fire Protection District (NCFPD) will receive a grant to help recruit and retain volunteer firefighters.

A 5-0 NCFPD board vote Sept. 27 accepted a Staffing for Adequate Firefighting and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant which will provide the district with $945,149 over a four-year period and created the administrative captain job description associated with the grant.

"This is really exciting," said NCFPD fire chief Steve Abbott.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's U.S. Fire Administration has an Assistance to Firefighters Grants program which includes SAFER grants. The NCFPD applied for a SAFER grant to develop a volunteer firefighter recruitment and retention program. In 1986 the Fallbrook Fire Protection District merged with the county service area providing fire protection to Rainbow to create the North County Fire Protection District; Rainbow was allowed to keep its volunteer fire department which has a separate budget administered by NCFPD. NCFPD Station 6 in Rainbow is still staffed by volunteers.

"The challenge isn't so much training them as keeping them," Abbott said.

The grant has two components. Just over half of the amount will be used for the new administrative captain who will handle day-to-day administration of the volunteer program including recruitment, training coordination, record keeping, certification, testing, and evaluation. The rest of the grant funding will be used for education and equipment for the volunteer firefighters including certifications.

The certification effort will ensure that volunteer firefighters are certified to drive a fire engine or ambulance. The administrative captain can also perform other functions, so although the expected four-year cost of the program exceeds the SAFER grant by approximately $60,000 the savings in administrative overtime costs will reduce the net cost to the district and the grant will also cover the current expenses of equipping and educating Rainbow's firefighters.

"It's really quite an opportunity," Abbott said.

Retention of volunteer firefighters would not only allow the volunteers the district trains to remain with the district longer but would also allow for volunteers who live close to the fire station.

"We really want to recruit locally," Abbott said. "There are plenty of good folks we'd like to reach out to."

The fire district has an Explorers program for junior high school and high school students, and many of those become volunteers with aspirations for a subsequent full-time position.

"We're really trying hard to create a career path

 

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