SUFFOLK, Va. — On a mild Thursday afternoon, an ambulance is seen leaving Suffolk Fire & Rescue 6 off Kings Fork Road.
It's one of 10 stations—soon to be 11— that serve the city of Suffolk, which is home to nearly 100,000 people, according to the most recent data from the US Census.
"We're on of the fastest growing fire departments," Fire Chief Michael Barakey told News 3's Jay Greene. "Other than Loudon County and Fairfax County, the City of Suffolk is the fastest growing municipality in the commonwealth."
In response, the fire department broke ground on Fire Station 11, in the city's northern corridor, last summer. The hope is to improve response times.
Suffolk
Ground breaks for multi-million dollar Fire Station 11 in Suffolk
Now, Chief Barakey is tasked with staffing the new fire department while keeping the other stations staffed.
Wednesday night, Suffolk City Council approved a $4.1 million SAFER grant from the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency. The grant assists municipalities, like Suffolk, that are in need of firefighters.
Chief Barakey said the money from that grant will go toward hiring 18 new firefighters in anticipation of Station 11's opening in 2025.
That money will be paid out over time, paying for salaries and benefits over the next three years.
"Our local budget will pay those salaries and then, on a quarterly and semiannual basis, we'll make reports to FEMA," Barakey said. "That money will be redistributed back from FEMA, back to the city and they'll go back into the city coffers."
Barakey said those 18 firefighters need to be hired by July of this year, according to the terms of the grant.
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Suffolk, other cities in Hampton Roads look to hire more firefighters
"It helps out because now we can not only have the staffing funded but now we can actually go to the academy and get those staff into the academy and get them onto the fire truck on station opens," Barakey told Greene.
The city employs nearly 320 firefighters, but the chief says that number could increase exponentially over the next 10 to 20 years, all based on Suffolk's growth.
"We could probably be a 500-person fire department," he told Greene.
