The Santa Rosa Fire Department will be able to hire more staff in three years after it was awarded over $7 million in funding by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to fire officials.
The $7.08 million grant will be provided to the fire department through FEMA’s Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response program, Santa Rosa fire officials said in a news release Monday.
Officials said the grant will allocate $2.36 million a year to the fire department for three years to hire 12 more firefighter-paramedics to staff two advanced life support squads during peak hours.
Two-person squads will be housed at the fire department’s facilities. According to fire officials, this will help Santa Rosa firefighters comply with the National Fire Protection Association standard on fire suppression operations and emergency medical operations, among others.
Adding another staff member to crews assigned to engine companies will also improve Santa Rosa firefighters’ compliance with the NFPA standard, according to the fire department.
“In advance of the grant award, the Fire Department has been proactively working on an implementation plan and will continue planning efforts to add these vital additional resources with new staffing by March 2024,” it said.