By Marisa Dawson
The Bennington Suburban Fire District (BFD) has secured a significant boost to its operations with a $565,678 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) program. The funding, awarded by the Department of Homeland Security, will cover salaries and benefits for three additional career Firefighter/EMTs over the next three years, allowing the department to meet national safety standards and improve response times amid growing call volumes.
According to FEMA’s official guidance on the SAFER program, the initiative was created to provide direct funding to fire departments and volunteer firefighter organizations to help increase or maintain the number of trained, frontline firefighters, ensuring communities can comply with staffing standards set by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Since its inception in 2005, SAFER has distributed approximately $5.8 billion in grants nationwide, focusing on hiring new personnel and supporting recruitment efforts. The program is highly competitive, with only about 207 awards granted in the most recent cycle out of roughly 30,000 fire departments across the U.S., as noted by BFD Chief Dan Mallory in a recent interview.
“This is something that we’ve been working on for several years,” Chief Mallory said. “We put in for it every year and have been rejected, and finally this year we were awarded.” He emphasized the grant’s rarity, adding, “Just in the state of Nebraska, there are only two departments that were selected this year- only one department last year. So this is quite an accomplishment to land something like this.”
The grant will enable BFD to add one firefighter per shift, bringing daily staffing to a level that aligns with NFPA recommendations. Chief Mallory explained that this upgrade addresses longstanding challenges in assembling adequate personnel for structure fires. “So this allows us to hire three additional personnel and there will be one firefighter addition per shift,” he said. “What that does for us is it gets us to the minimum staffing that the NFPA recommends for a fire engine going to a structure fire in a rural or suburban area.”
Chief Mallory highlighted how the current reliance on mutual aid and volunteers has made it difficult to meet these benchmarks promptly. “Up until this time, we’ve relied on mutual aid and our volunteer support and try to get enough resources and people assembled to make a safe fire attack on a structure fire,” he said. “And it’s worked. But there are other standards as far as we need to get at least six people within the first 10 minutes and that’s what we were struggling with. So with this grant, this gets us to the minimum standard to meet that standard.”
The additional staff will also transform day-to-day operations, particularly for medical calls, which make up a growing portion of the department’s workload. “Mainly it’s going to be able to dedicate two people to our ambulance, then we’ll have four in the engine,” Chief Mallory said. “Right now we cross staff depending on how many people are here. Which means we don’t always have full staff as far as getting two people on the ambulance.” With overlapping calls occurring about 17% of the time, the extra personnel will ensure the station remains responsive even when an ambulance is en route to the hospital.
Federal funding like SAFER plays a crucial role in bridging gaps for local departments, especially in growing communities like Bennington. As detailed in FEMA’s SAFER program overview, grants cover 75% of wages and benefits in the first two years, dropping to 35% in year three, before shifting full responsibility to the recipient in year four. This structure provides a “tremendous benefit” for taxpayers, Chief Mallory noted, allowing BFD to expand without immediate full financial burden. “Without the SAFER grant, we would have stayed at the numbers that we were at and our call volumes continued to increase and so we couldn’t do it without SAFER,” he said. “It’s a tremendous benefit for our community and it’s a savings for our taxpayers too.”
Looking ahead, the grant aligns with BFD’s long-term vision amid Bennington’s rapid growth. “This is the first start and we’ll probably stay at this staffing level for the next several years,” Chief Mallory said. “Eventually there will be a time where we end up getting large enough and enough call volume where we see another station opening- within the next 10 years, I would say.” Sustainability post-grant will rely on the expanding tax base from new development, ensuring no tax increases are needed.
BFD is now actively recruiting for these positions, with applications open until January 9, 2026. Candidates must hold EMT and Firefighter 1 certifications and demonstrate a positive attitude and strong work ethic. “We want somebody with positive attitudes and that’s the biggest thing that we hire for, is attitude,” Chief Mallory said. “If they’re a good person, hard worker, positive attitude, and brings that to work every day, that’s the type of employee we’re looking for.”
For those considering a career in firefighting, Chief Mallory sees this as an ideal entry point into a dynamic department. “This is an excellent time because we are a growing community,” he said. “So this department, we’ve only had career staff coming up on five years now. So we’re a young department. This is the time to get to the ground. It’s a ground level department. It’s only going to get bigger, it’s only going to grow.”
Interested applicants can register for the exam at nationaltestingnetwork.com or visit benningtonfirerescue.com. Chief Mallory and his team are “pretty excited” about the future, viewing the grant as a pivotal step in serving Bennington’s residents more effectively.
