Lower Burrell’s fire departments will be getting new equipment that, the chiefs say, will improve safety for its volunteers.

Interior firefighters in Lower Burrell’s Kinloch fire department will soon have new air packs when they battle blazes, and Lower Burrell Co. 3 will get an exhaust system to eliminate hazardous vehicle exhaust fumes in its fire station.

And with a rash of intense fires across the Tri-Cities that they’ve been responding to — it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Kinloch was awarded $239,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s assistance to firefighters grant program.

Chief Ted Hereda said the money will be used to buy 23 air packs, which firefighters use when they enter a fire.

The current air packs are about 14 years old, Hereda said. There’s no end date to them, and they’re still up to code, but they’ve gotten worn out, he said.

“Not only are we getting 23 air packs, we’re also getting 23 air bottles, and each member who’s an interior firefighter will get a fitted mask,” Hereda said.

There are about 22 interior firefighters in Kinloch’s department, Hereda said.

Fire departments in the Tri-Cities have battled especially difficult fires this year.

In April, a house fire on Strawn Avenue in New Kensington claimed the life of a woman; two women were killed and a third was badly injured in an August structure fire on Kenneth Avenue in Arnold; and a Dakota Drive, Lower Burrell house fire earlier this month resulted in a total loss.

Hereda said the cost of air packs have doubled since Kinloch last got the equipment more than a dozen years ago.

“It’s definitely a big help,” Hereda said. “It’s $239,000 we’d have to come up with if we didn’t get it.”

Lower Burrell Co. 3 received a $95,000 FEMA grant to install a plymovent exhaust system in its station at 3255 Leechburg Road.

Chief Brennan Sites said the system attaches to the exhaust system of each truck, to expel carcinogens from the vehicles from the building. It prevents members from being exposed to potential cancer-causing emissions.

He said that he knows of about five local volunteer firefighters who have gotten cancer in the past couple of years as a result of exposure to carcinogens.

“It makes it a healthier place to be,” Sites said.

Both chiefs anticipate their equipment to be in place next year.

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