By Ryan Justin Fox
Dayton Daily News (Ohio)
Copyright 2006 Dayton Newspapers, Inc. 

It was a neighboring local government that helped bolster the cashstrapped Phillipsburg Fire Department earlier this year. Last month, the federal government chipped in $261,250 to help out the village's volunteer department.

U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, announced on Oct. 4 the award of more than $200,000 in federal money to help the department purchase a new fire engine.

"We were very fortunate to get this grant," fire Chief Doug Woolf said.

This summer, Clayton's fire department donated one of its reserve fire trucks to the village. Clayton, which passed a levy to purchase a new truck, had planned to give the old engine to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but New Orleans officials declined the offer.

Though Phillipsburg just received its engine, the apparatus is more than 20 years old, which qualifies the village to apply for the highly competitive federal grant passed in 2001.

More than 20,000 fire departments across the country applied for the grant through the U.S. Fire Administration last year, with a little more than 7,000 departments winning grant money, according to DeWine's office.

"I am pleased to know that Phillipsburg families and the Phillipsburg Fire Department will benefit from this grant," DeWine said.

Woolf said he expects the village to have a new late-model engine with a 1,500 gallon-per-minute pump ready for use by next fall.

Phillipsburg Fire Department has 32 firefighters and EMS staff, all of them volunteers, a tanker and a rescue vehicle.