The Onset Fire Department received $166,338 in federal funding to help maintain the department’s staffing levels.

The funds are part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s SAFER Program (Staffing for  Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grants). The program is intended to help communities increase or maintain the number of trained firefighters in a department.

Onset plans to use those funds for recruitment and retention efforts to maintain its current mostly paid on-call staffing model. 

Specifically, the department plans to use the funds to hire 15 more paid, on-call firefighters over the next three years and provide incentives to current members. Retention measures, according to a department press release, are intended to keep current firefighters active and involved and to avoid losing those firefighters’ experience.