GROOM, Texas (KVII) — The Texas A&M Forest Service has awarded $164 million to volunteer fire departments across the state to help them purchase and upgrade essential firefighting equipment.
Of that total, more than $5 million was distributed to 31 departments in the Texas Panhandle—making this year’s grants the largest since the program began.
The Groom Volunteer Fire Department (VFD) received $45,000 to upgrade one of its trucks. Mason Miller with the Groom VFD explained that the new equipment will be especially useful for responding to grass and semi-truck fires.
“Mainly it’ll be used for grass fires. We also have a large portion of the interstate, and semi fires are a big thing for us,” Miller said. “We’re hoping to make this a 750-gallon slip-on unit, while this truck behind me—what we normally use to put out a semi fire—only carries 500 gallons of water.”
Juan Rodriguez with the Texas A&M Forest Service emphasized the importance of properly equipping volunteer departments.
“Because they are going to be the first ones to get called to any of these incidents,” Rodriguez said. “It doesn’t matter how small some of these fire departments are; they respond to some of the more important calls that are in their areas.”
On average, the Groom VFD responds to about 100 calls per year and operates on a $30,000 annual budget.
Miller said the grant provides crucial financial relief and helps the department stay ready for increasing call volumes.
“When we can get these grants, it sure makes it a lot easier for departments to grow,” Miller said. “All our older trucks are going out of date and breaking a lot, and the call volume is higher than we’ve ever seen. With all the rain we’ve gotten this year, I think the call volume will go up during grass fire season. So, being able to have newer trucks that can get where we need to go makes a big difference.”