Funded by FEMA and DHS

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Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) Facts

• Funded by FEMA and DHS
• Developed in 2001 to fund fire departments and
  non-affiliated EMS organizations in the purchase
  of equipment and training

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AFG Categories

• Three categories of the AFG
• Vehicle Acquisition
• Operations and Safety
• Regional Projects
• Fire departments can apply for one grant in each
  of the three categories for a total of three
  grants
• FLAME-SIM falls under two of the three
  categories
• Operations and Safety
• Regional Projects

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Local Cash Match (based on population served)

• Less than 20,000 5
• 20,000 to 50,000 10
• More than 50,000 20

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Excess Funds

• Up to 50 of a grants excess funds over 5,000
  may be used for training
• All excess grant funds less than 5,000 may be
  used for training
• In both cases, an amendment to the grant must be
  filed with your local DHS representative

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Training NFPA 1001

• Fire department applicants must indicate the
  percentage of active firefighters trained to NFPA
  1001 standards
• Applicants with less than 100 will be asked to
  explain their plans to meet the NFPA 1001
  standard

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Narrative Key Points

• Remember, your peers will be reading your
  narrative make your need clear to them
• Relate only local information, not national
  statistics. Keep it pertinent to your department.
• Provide only information the reviewers dont know
• Remember to discuss your training program and
  your plan to move toward 100 compliance with
  NFPA 1001

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Narrative Key Points (cont.)

• Dont embellish, keep it short and to the point.
  Why do you need this? What has changed?
• Use periods only in punctuation. Their system
  does not recognize any other punctuation and
  often converts it to something weird which makes
  your narrative hard to read. Do not use bold,
  underline, or italics it will not show up.

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Narrative Project Description And Budget

• Who are you?
• Where are you?
• What is your identified risk/problem?
• What is your solution?
• What standards will be met?
• How much will it cost?
• Is this a practical use of government money?
  Bonus points if you can show this!

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Narrative Financial Need

• Why do you need money from the Federal
  Government? (EX1)
• Briefly compare your income to expenses to
  illustrate your current funding deficiencies
  (EX2)
• Have you tried other methods of funding? Why
  didnt they work? (EX3)
• Explain financial and community trends or changes
  (EX4)

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Narrative Cost vs. Benefit

• Explain what benefits you will realize in return
  for grant funds
• Frequency of use vs. cost (EX5)
• Increased operational efficiency (EX6)
• Provides an economical solution (EX7)
• Interoperability/Mutual Aid (EX8)
• Consequences of not receiving award (EX9)

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Effect on Daily Operations

• How will the grant
• Improve firefighter safety? (EX10)
• Reduce loss of life and property? (EX10)
• Discuss frequency of use and describe how results
  will be measured (EX11)
• How will tactical operations improve? (EX12)
• What problems would be solved by receiving the
  grant? (EX13)

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Helpful Hints

• Write the narrative offline
• This will prevent losing your work should the
  system time-out.
• Have a third-party review/proof read the
  application and narrative
• Avoid using templates and brand names
• Ensure the application is complete before
  submission
• Once submitted, the application cannot be
  changed!

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Examples Additional Information
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• EX1
• Why do you need money from the Federal
  Government?
• Example Our city has experienced a 17 decrease
  in sales and property tax revenues and this trend
  appears to growing worse. As a result, our
  departments overall budget, which was very lean
  to begin with, has now been reduced by an
  additional 30. This forced reduction has all
  but eliminated our available budget for
  additional training materials.

• EX2
• Briefly compare your income to expenses to
  illustrate your current funding deficiencies
• Example The breakdown of our departments
  current budget allocations are as follows 89 -
  Salaries and Benefits which include salaries,
  overtime, health insurance, physicals, etc 11 -
  Operations and Equipment which include equipment
  maintenance and fuel, tools, office supplies and
  equipment, PPE, and training. Due to the forced
  budget reduction, only essential spending is
  being permitted, capital expenditures have been
  cut to 0, and we have cut our personnel staffing
  by 8 through layoffs and attrition.

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• EX3
• Have you tried other methods of funding? Why
  didnt they work?
• Example An initiative was undertaken by our
  Citizens Fire Academy and our local
  firefighters association, in an attempt to get
  corporate sponsorship and funding for this
  training program. Due to the downturn in the
  economy, corporate and private donations have
  been reduced by 80.

• EX4
• Explain financial and community trends or
  changes.
• Example Multi-company live fire training has
  become prohibitively expensive and logistically
  difficult to organize, and live burns have all
  but been eliminated due to EPA restrictions. At
  best we have been able to conduct multi-company
  training no more than 2 times per year with less
  than 70 of our members involved in the training.
  With this simulation training program we expect
  to increase the frequency of multi-company
  training to a minimum of 12 times per year at
  half of the cost of just one of the live training
  events, and get 100 of our members trained to
  the same level.

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• EX5
• Frequency of use vs. cost
• Example Multi-company live fire training has
  become prohibitively expensive and logistically
  difficult to organize, and live burns have all
  but been eliminated due to EPA restrictions. At
  best we have been able to conduct multi-company
  training no more than 2 times per year with less
  than 70 of our members involved in the training.
  With this simulation training program we expect
  to increase the frequency of multi-company
  training to a minimum of 12 times per year at
  half of the cost of just one of the live training
  events, and get 100 of our members trained to
  the same level.

• EX6
• Increased operational efficiency
• Example An effective simulation fire training
  program will allow our members to repeatedly
  practice our fire ground operations procedures,
  improve the members tactical decision making
  skills, and develop better communication
  procedures. This repetitive training will vastly
  improve our fire ground communications and
  organizational initiatives making our real fire
  incidents safer and more efficient.

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• EX7
• Provides an economical solution
• Example Because we can design an easily portable
  system that will allow us to use a simulation
  training program in various locations, and the
  program is installed on dedicated computers for
  this system, the cost is complete. Transportation
  and set up of the system at various locations is
  a minimal cost and will enable us to repeatedly
  utilize this training tool.

• EX8
• Interoperability/Mutual Aid
• Example The simulation program we are
  considering will allow us to create customized
  scenarios, apparatus, and personnel to reflect
  our regions mutual aid and automatic aid
  responses. This program can then be used for
  multi-agency training and improve inter-agency
  communication and organization, and provide
  operational standardization of the fire ground
  incident.

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• EX9
• Consequences of not receiving award
• Example A reduction in training due to
  inadequate funding will greatly affect our
  ability to operate safely and efficiently on the
  fire ground. This inability to provide effective
  training will most certainly increase the number
  of fire ground injuries to our firefighters and
  put our citizens at a greater risk of injury and
  death due to reduced efficiency and competency
  levels of our staff.

• EX10
• How will this grant improve firefighter safety
  and reduce loss of life property?
• Example Interactive simulation fire training
  will give our firefighters an opportunity to
  develop good decision making skills and reinforce
  proper actions on the fire ground. It will also
  improve fire ground communication procedures and
  give our members the confidence and experience
  that they need to effectively perform their
  assignments at all of our emergency incidents.
  This increased efficiency will improve the
  overall safety of each incident, reduce
  firefighter injuries and fatalities, and reduce
  the loss of life and property for our citizens.

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• EX11
• Discuss frequency of use and describe how results
  will be measured
• Example The simulation program that we are
  considering uses a dynamic environment that
  changes with fire progression, effective or
  non-effective fire attack and ventilation
  actions, and proper execution of fire ground
  assignments. Because we can create a number of
  different scenarios that increase in scope and
  difficulty, each scenario can be followed by a
  post-incident critique, identifying areas of
  needed improvement. The participants can then go
  right into another scenario and apply what they
  have learned, reinforcing good behavior and
  decision making skills. The training officer can
  easily monitor each participants actions and
  communications which will immediately identify
  deficiencies in operations and communications on
  the fire ground. A detailed, written record of
  the incident is automatically saved to each
  computer at the conclusion of each scenario. This
  after-action report can be used as written
  documentation of the training exercise.

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• EX12
• How will tactical operations improve?
• Example Simulation training is designed with a
  focus on fire ground tactical operations. A
  program of this nature will allow our department
  to repeatedly train on fire ground operations and
  tactics, improve our communications procedures,
  and increase the skill and confidence levels of
  our members, particularly those of our newer,
  less experienced firefighters and fire officers.
  This repeated training will help to develop
  experience-based decision making skills by giving
  our members a chance to perform proper actions
  and decisions in a dynamic fire environment.

• EX13
• What problems would be solved by receiving the
  grant?
• Example The cost of multi-company training will
  be greatly reduced and the frequency of effective
  fire ground training will increase by more than
  400. Because the cost and logistics of live fire
  training are ever increasing, the incidence of
  these training exercises will continue to drop
  due to inadequate funding. Simulation fire
  training provides a fixed cost solution to these
  spiraling costs and allows for more effective and
  comprehensive training of our members. Use of
  this program will also enable our department to
  effectively train with neighboring departments
  and improve the inter-operability of our regional
  responses.

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Advantages of Using Simulation-based Training

• Simulation fire training gives the
  firefighter/student an opportunity to gain
  valuable fire ground experience in a safe and
  realistic environment, applying many of the
  skills included in NFPA 1001.
• Simulation programs can re-create scenarios and
  conditions that are difficult, if not impossible,
  to re-create at a traditional training center or
  live fire training exercise.
• Simulation training can be conducted at the
  station level or at a dedicated training center
  increasing the frequency of training.
• The Flame-Sim program can be used for individual
  or group fire training with the option of having
  up to 10 individuals operating independently and
  simultaneously within the same scenario.

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Advantages of Using Simulation-based Training
(cont.)

• Simulation training can be used repeatedly with
  little or no additional cost, greatly reducing
  the money spent on traditional company training.
• The Flame-Sim program utilizes a dynamic
  environment that automatically changes with time,
  conditions, and effectiveness of fire attack
  actions and decisions.
• The Flame-Sim program allows firefighters/students
  to practice all aspects of the Incident Command
  System including fire ground management and
  decision making skills, proper ventilation
  techniques, proper communications, fire attack,
  search and rescue, RIT, ladder placement,
  forcible entry, and use of SCBA, thermal imagers,
  hand tools, and power tools.
• The Flame-Sim program includes benchmarks in each
  scenario that are based on NFPA standards 550,
  551, 1403, 1410, 1500, 1561, 1670, and 1710.

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Advantages of Using Simulation-based Training
(cont.)

• Simulation training provides a unique learning
  opportunity by allowing the firefighter/student
  to make mistakes, identify those mistakes, and
  immediately apply the lessons learned in another
  simulated scenario which reinforces good decision
  making skills and behaviors.
• Simulation training allows the firefighter/student
  to develop experience based decision making
  skills.
• The Flame-Sim program can be used for
  multi-company and multi-agency training exercises
  increasing the effectiveness and coordination of
  multi-agency responses and improving the
  interoperability of multi-agency incidents. This
  training can include not only fire ground
  operations and tactics, but fire ground
  communications and coordination as well.