By Sophia Keshmiri
The Keene Sentinel
KEENE, N.H. — Keene hopes to bring on 12 new firefighters in the future with the help of a grant. But city officials recently learned the federal share of this grant would be less than they’d expected.
This news comes a little over a month after city councilors approved hiring four more firefighters, who started this week with onboarding and orientation, amid record call volumes. This and staff working overtime have allowed the Keene Fire Department to add a third ambulance each shift.
If awarded, the federal Staffing For Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant would allow the city to hire another 12 firefighters, enabling the department to run a second fire engine each shift.
However, when the application process opened May 23 — almost two months after it was expected to in early March — city officials learned the grant would cover only 75 percent of the cost of hiring these additional 12 firefighters in the first year, as opposed to the 100 percent that was anticipated.
“We’re very excited that the funding has become available, even though it is later than we anticipated,” City Manager Elizabeth Ferland said. “And the additional upfront costs is something that we will have to discuss with the City Council if we are successful at receiving this grant.”
City councilors agreed in February to apply for the grant, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency .
Previous iterations funded 100 percent of the cost of new staff for awardees for three years, at which point the cost became the responsibility of the grant recipient. But funding for awardees of this iteration will taper off. For the first two years FEMA will fund 75 percent of the cost, dropping to 35 percent in the third.
Though the federal share would be less than the fire department expected, Deputy Fire Chief Gregory Seymour said it’s common for the funding breakdown through the program to change periodically.
And he said said he hopes this year’s lower federal share could mean more departments will receive awards, increasing Keene’s chances.
“Seventy-five percent is still a significant number … only being on the hook for 25 percent for that first year is is a big deal,” Seymour said. “ ... that’ll still give the community an immediate benefit without having to give them the immediate financial burden.”
Seymour said the department needs the additional 12 firefighters badly.
In spite of being able to run the third ambulance, “which has been massively helpful,” Seymour said, more is still needed. “The working hours are still way up high,” he pointed out. “The demand for service is still way up there, and we can’t, unfortunately ... meet all of our operational and community needs with the current level of staffing that we’re at.”
The addition of the four new firefighters brought total personnel for the department to 56, according to Seymour.
City councilors are in the midst of considering the budget for fiscal year 2026, which includes roughly half a million dollars to keep on the additional four firefighters they already approved hiring. At that time, they allocated $70,067 for the new staff and $490,000 in overtime for existing staff to cover costs through the end of this fiscal year.
The late start of the FEMA grant process and news of the lower federal share come amid significant upheaval in federal departments and funding due to directives by the Trump administration.
Seymour said the Keene Fire Department relies on several other FEMA grants. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated an interest in eliminating the agency. FEMA staff have been significantly reduced in that time.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars annually,” Seymour said, “typically we’re awarded for grants that otherwise we couldn’t make up … we couldn’t add that money into our budget ever.”
Seymour pointed to another FEMA initiative, a training program, that was paused in March but has since reopened.
“They provide free education that a lot of our members go to annually, which is huge stuff,” he said. “And that’s all stuff from, you know, domestic preparedness to incident command to a lot of different things that we can’t — trainings which we can’t do here, from world class instructors.”
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