A federal grant will enable Ashland Fire and Rescue to upgrade breathing equipment and provide health screenings for all of its firefighters, MailTribune.com reported.

Ashland Fire and Rescue announced the $365,181 award Monday from the Assistance to Firefighters grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Without this grant, due to Ashland’s tight budget, the department would have struggled to update its outdated equipment, according to a statement put out by Ashland Fire and Rescue.

The breathing equipment — called self-contained breathing apparatus, or SCBA — consists of air tanks carried on packs worn by firefighters, with face pieces to prevent breathing super-heated air or smoke filled with toxic chemicals, according to the statement.

The packs include an alarm system for fallen or trapped firefighters. Connections allow firefighters to aid each other by hooking into another breathing pack, supplying air from a full tank to one running low, the report said.

The last of the federal COVID-19 aid to Olean (NY) will go to making firefighters breathe a little easier, OleanTimesHerald.com reported.

The Common Council authorized $100,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds to a reserve account, allowing the city fire department to purchase around $254,000 in self-contained breathing apparatus units and oxygen bottles for the department, the report said.

The funds and dealer financing will be used to replace 26 breathing systems, 66 air bottles, and two rapid intervention team air supplies to provide emergency air; as well as convert 40 currently owned breathing systems and the city’s bottle fill station to use the new quarter-twist air bottles, according to the report.

The city received roughly $1.4 million from the ARPA, split in two payments in July 2021 and July 2022, the report said.

Lancaster County commissioners presented a $500,000 check to the Lancaster Township Fire Department on Tuesday, Fox43.com reported. The money will go toward building a new fire station on Millersville Pike, a project decades in the making.

The new firehouse will replace the two fire stations on each side of the township, the report said. 

The project was delayed numerous times due to the pandemic and ongoing inflation, the report said. Funds from American Rescue Plan saved the project.

Construction on the new firehouse will begin on October 29 and is expected to be completed by the end of 2023, according to the report.

As part of a tradition dating back to the 19th century, members of the Rio Rico Fire District held a “push-in” ceremony recently for RRFD’s newest engine, NogalesInternational.com reported.

RRFD’s new Engine 520 was pushed into Station No. 3 at 822 Pendleton Drive during the district board meeting September 28.

Engine 520 is a combination Type I/Type III Engine, meaning it can respond to wildland fires, structure fires and just about any other fire, the report said. While it will be housed at Station No. 3, it will also deploy to wildfires when requested by state or federal officials, according to the report.

Some of the engine’s features include a 2022 Freightliner M2 Business Class chassis, all-wheel drive, 360-degree camera system, off-road lighting, Bluetooth headsets with half-mile range, a 1,250 gallons-per-minute pump for water and foam, a front-mounted turret controlled from inside the cab and a thermal imaging turret-mounted camera, the report said.

The new engine cost $480,000, plus another $40,000 for equipment, the report said.