Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program is a grant program, which is initiated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), through its United States Fire Administration (USFA). The aim of this grant program is to support local fire departments and fire service organizations in order to protect “the health and safety of the public and firefighting personnel against fire and fire-related hazards, and to provide assistance for fire prevention programs.” In the first nine months of FY 2001 FEMA/USFA awarded 1886 grants worth $96,586,668. For detailed information about the 2001 awards, you can check the USFA Report on Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program for FY2001. This report will mainly focus on FY 2002 awards.
 

· February 21, 2002 FEMA/USFA released the Program Guidance for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program for FY2002. In this release it was announced that for the FY2002, Congress appropriated a total of $360,000,000 to carry out the activities of this Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. The program areas for the 2002 awards were decided as: 1- Fire Operations and Firefighter Safety 2- Fire Prevention 3- Emergency Medical Services 4- Firefighter Vehicles Acquisition. Among those programs, Emergency Medical Services Program is a program that didn’t exist in last years’ programs. Applicants may apply for assistance in only one of these areas, however different alternatives do exist within each area. The deadline for the applications is decided as April 5, 2002. 
· FEMA/USFA received 19,500 applications, among which 17,786 came from Volunteer/Combination fire departments, requesting more than $1.9 billion. 1,733 applications came from Career fire departments, requesting more than $287 million. The highest number of applications is received in the area of Fire Operations and Firefighter Safety, a total of $882,539,097 representing 58 percent of all applications. $1.26 billion is requested in the area of Fire Fighting Vehicles representing 37 percent of the applications. Smaller pieces of the pie are requested in the area of Emergency Medical Services with $35,174,783 representing two percent of applications and $30,580,741 in the area of Fire Prevention Programs representing three percent of the applications. 
· After this stage, three hundred fire service personnel that are from different fire departments from throughout the United States formed a committee and conducted peer evaluations of grant requests, and finally on May 16, 2002 they are finished with their work and the reviews are forwarded to FEMA/USFA staff for final processing and selection of grant recipients. 
· On July 11, 2002 FEMA/USFA announced the first 72 Assistance to Firefighters Grant awards. The total amount of awards to these 72 departments was $3.9 million. Same day FEMA/USFA announced that a total of 5500 grants will be announced over the next five months. 
· On July 15, 2002 FEMA/USFA announced that a boilerplate press release is available to assist the 2002 grant award fire departments to communicate their awards to the public and media. 
· On July 22, 2002 FEMA/USFA announced 281 new departments that will receive approximately $23 million. 
· On August 12, 2002 FEMA/USFA announced 389 new fire departments that will receive more than $28 million. 
· On August 23, 2002 it has been announced that $10,000,000 of the total appropriated amount of $360,000,000 will be granted for fire prevention activities and FEMA/USFA started the application period, which is due to September 23, 2002. 
· On September 3, 2002 FEMA/USFA announced the 354 fire departments that receive grants. 
· On September 16, 2002 FEMA/USFA announced the 517 next fire departments that receive grants. 
· So as of September 16, 2002 FEMA/USFA announced a total of 1,614 awards with a total budget of $109,081,846. 1243 Awards and approximately $75.1 million are provided in the area of Fire Operations & Firefighter Safety, 121 Awards and approximately $5.4 million are provided in the area of Fire Prevention, 240 Awards and approximately $27.9 million are provided in the area of Firefighting Vehicles and 10 Awards and approximately $0.8 million are provided in the area of Emergency Medical Services.

1-USFA Report on Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program for FY2001 
    http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/01report-affgp.pdf

2-Funding Programs: Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program by Carmen Whitson
    http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~emse232/emse232oct

3-http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/inside-usfa/grants.cfm

4- USFA Program Guidance for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program for FY2002
    http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/02prgguide.pdf

5- FEMA/USFA Press Release
    http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/media/02-034.cfm

6- FEMA/USFA Press Release
    http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/media/02-057.cfm

7- FEMA/USFA Press Release
     http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/media/02-103.cfm

8- FEMA/USFA Press Release
     http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/media/02-109.cfm

9- FEMA/USFA Boilerplate Press Release Template for 2002 grant award fire dept.
     http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/doc/writearelease.doc

10- FY2002 Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program Entire Recipient List
     http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/xlsdownload.cfm?file=/downloads/xls/grants/fy02total.xls

11- FEMA/USFA Press Release / FY2002 Award Recipients
       http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/inside-usfa/02awards.cfm

12- FEMA/USFA Press Release
       http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/media/02-112.cfm

13- FEMA/USFA Press Release - USFA Addressed FAQ concerning the evaluation of 
      Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program 2002 applications
      http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/media/02-129.cfm

14- FEMA/USFA Press Release - 2002 Special Fire Prevention and Safety Grant
       http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/inside-usfa/02-prev-grants.cfm

15- General FAQ concerning the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program 
       http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/inside-usfa/02faqs.html