SAMPLE CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING VOLUNTEER FIRE ASSISTANCE APPLICATIONS

State foresters have wide latitude in developing criteria for prioritizing applications for Volunteer Fire Assistance (VFA) funding that are received from fire departments and fire training academies. It is important that the system used to determine these priorities have credibility with the financial assistance applicants. Some considerations upon which criteria may be established are listed below. While this list is by no means all-inclusive it will serve as a guide to criteria that may be used. Applications are normally approved considering such factors as a community's need for the funding, willingness of the fire department to improve its capabilities, and how the funding will be used. Many States devise point systems to rate each criterion used in the evaluation. Some considerations upon which criteria may be based are:

   Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating for the community.

   Availability of mutual-aid forces from other communities to provide fire suppression assistance to the community.

   Willingness and ability of the community to provide wildfire suppression action on State-responsibility fires.

   Use(s) of funding (personal protective equipment; conversion of Federal Excess Personal Property to fire apparatus; improvement of radio communications capability; installation of dry fire hydrants, cisterns, and other measures to improve water supplies; purchase of water and foam delivery equipment such as portable pumps, hoses, foam proportioners, air compressors, foam concentrate, portable water tanks; training of rural firefighters; organizing new fire departments; fire prevention activities).

   Size of community (population).

   Recency of prior VFA financial awards to the community.

   Number of incidents responded to and potential for large-loss fires.

   Willingness of the community to provide wildfire statistical reports to the State forester.

   Amount and condition of the community's fire equipment.

   Community's tax base. This affects the community's ability to fund fire protection (not necessarily its willingness).