South Lake Tahoe receives $1.46M SAFER grant to fill 7 new firefighter spots

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The City of South Lake Tahoe has been awarded $1,462,702.50 in SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In an announcement of Round 4 awardees, South Lake Tahoe was named a recipient.

Funds will go to hire seven new firefighters in preparation for opening Fire Station 2 in the Al Tahoe neighborhood.

"We are pleased to receive the grant award, and look forward to reopening Fire Station 2 early next year," said South Lake Tahoe City Manager Frank Rush. "The additional personnel will greatly enhance the City’s fire suppression capabilities, emergency response, and firefighter safety."

Rush said recruitment is already underway for the seven new positions.

FEMA received 8,406 applications for the 2018 program, the smallest number of applications in the history of the grant program. Tens of millions of dollars were awarded to departments across the country.

Of those applications, 2,085 were for new vehicles. The average age of vehicles requested for replacement were 22 years for urban departments, 26 years for suburban departments, and 30 years for rural departments. All these numbers are down slightly from 2017 vehicle applications.

The City of Reno was also a recipient of a SAFER grant in the amount of $1.82M and East Fork Fire in Minden received $1.115M. Other Sierra Nevada communities awarded grants include Sonora and Mokelumne Hill.

SAFER was created to provide funding directly to fire departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations to help them increase or maintain the number of trained, "front line" firefighters available in their communities.