HOULTON, Maine – A Houlton woman, alarmed by the town’s outdated public safety equipment, found grant funding for the fire department’s much needed thermal imaging masks.
Rosa McNally, a volunteer who is also the grant writer for the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, met with Houlton Fire Department Chief Milton Cone to get a list of what unfunded equipment the department needed. She took the list with a promise to try and find a funding match for some of the items.
“I understand we are trying to keep taxes down, but it doesn’t defer the need for what our public safety officers need,” McNally said during the Houlton Town Council meeting on Monday night. McNally was referring to police, fire and EMS. “If we can’t find grant funds for them, the town needs to step up and get some of these things because it really alarmed me when I realized what the needs are.”
It’s always a challenge for small towns like Houlton to juggle the expenses of deteriorating equipment, roads and other town needs while at the same time not increasing taxes. In the town’s 2024 $13.7 million budget, the approved police budget was $150,000 less than what was requested. The ambulance budget of $877,295 was questioned because of a drop in calls.
Nonetheless, Cone was able to keep 2024 costs down despite an increase in contractual salary allowances.
Through McNally’s efforts, the Leary Firefighters Foundation recently awarded the department just over $27,000 for the purchase of four 3M Scott Sight In-Mask Thermal Imagers.
“We are here tonight because Rosa McNally found that the Leary firefighter grant program would fit in nicely,” Cone shared with the town council. “They are willing to purchase four of the SCBA masks (self-contained breathing apparatus) that have the built in thermal imaging camera which frees up firefighters’ hands when doing search and rescue and fire suppression.”
There is no town match required for the thermal imaging masks.
“Extremely thankful to Rosa for the work she did,” Cone said.
The fire department also received a Maine Forest Service Volunteer Fire Assistance Grant of $1,794 to purchase two radios, two pagers, six nylon back pumps and two speaker mics.
“In the budget process in November, I asked for some additional funds to be placed into the fire department budget as a match for this grant,” Cone said.
The Houlton Regional Health Services Foundation also donated three Lucas CPR chest compression systems to the department’s EMS team.
These are systems that perform chest compressions for EMS workers, freeing up workers to do other things like IV medications and breathe for the patient.
During the town council meeting EMS staff demonstrated how the compressions system works, explaining that it is hard for responders to maintain steady consistent compressions for more than five minutes. The machine can go for over two hours and never makes a mistake, they said.
