Application period ends February 26 for FY 2020 AFG Fire Prevention & Safety grants through FEMA

The deadline is February 26 to apply for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s FY 2020 Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) Program Fire Prevention & Safety (FP&S) grants. FEMA is hosting webinars through February 16 to familiarize potential applicants with the program. The FY 2020 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) focuses much needed attention on supporting code officials as well as adopting, implementing, and enforcing the codes:

• Fire code enforcement and awareness is a primary objective of the FY 2020 FP&S grant program.
• FP&S activities are data-driven, focusing code enforcement activities on decreasing fire losses, structural fires, fire-related deaths, and structural property losses in excess of $25,000.
• FP&S applications will be evaluated, in part, by a fire department’s commitment to mitigation. This includes adoption and enforcement of a wildland urban interface (WUI) code such as the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code (IWUIC) and commercial/residential sprinkler code adoption and enforcement. A good resource here is the National Fire Sprinkler Association’s 2020 Guide for Fire Sprinkler Tax Incentives which includes recent updates from the Coronavirus Economic Stabilization Act of 2020.

The FY 2020 FP&S grants make wildfire risk reduction, code enforcement and awareness a funding priority. This includes projects that focus on first-time or reinstatement of code adoption and code enforcement, including WUI fire codes for communities with a WUI-wildfire risk.