White River Junction
The Hartford fire station currently has an exhaust extraction system in place, but it is well beyond its life expectancy and doesn’t work as well as it should; Windsor doesn’t have one at all, the chiefs said on Wednesday.
The new system each department will purchase, thanks to grant funding, consists of hoses that attach to fire trucks and other vehicles’ exhausts. The hoses capture the fumes and carry them outside of the fire station.
The systems become even more important for stations like Hartford and Windsor because they are career fire departments where people live while they are working.
“The main reasons for this is keeping my people safe, and visitors,” Windsor Fire Chief Kevin McAllister said.
Currently, when a fire truck is started inside the Windsor station, the carbon monoxide detectors in the living corridors go off, McAllister said.
“It is harmful to breathe this stuff in,” Hartford Fire Chief Scott Cooney said.
Fire trucks and most ambulances have diesel engines, which produce a mixture of toxic gases. Workers exposed to diesel exhaust face various risks ranging from eye and nose irritation and headaches and nausea to respiratory disease and cancer, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The departments are able to make the purchases this year because they were awarded funding through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant program, according to a news release announcing the funding.
Vermont’s congressional delegation announced on Wednesday that departments in the state received just shy of $1 million in grants for various improvements.
Both Windsor and Hartford applied for the grant funding. Windsor received $81,000, while Hartford received $93,000.
Six other departments in Vermont received funding, in addition to the Department of Public Safety, Division of Fire Safety.
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.