Fairbanks gets $728,000 in congressionally directed funds for a 14-stretcher ambulance bus

A federal grant will let the Fairbanks Fire Department move up to 14 stretcher patients in a single vehicle during a mass casualty event. The City of Fairbanks is getting $728,000 to buy and outfit a medical ambulance bus. The money is an earmark, congressionally directed rather than competitively awarded, and requires no local match. The award period starts Sept. 30.

The vehicle can carry up to 22 seated patients or 14 patients on stretchers at once, according to the federal award record. The grant description states the bus is intended for mass casualty incidents, disaster events, evacuations and other emergencies involving multiple patients, while regular ambulance service continues.

Beyond the city, the record states the vehicle will support at least three mutual aid partners throughout the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the neighboring departments that answer calls across one another's boundaries. The award record does not name those partners.

The City of Fairbanks runs its own fire and EMS service. Outside city limits, coverage comes through borough fire service areas, separately taxed districts each with its own commission.

Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Grier Hopkins described that arrangement to the Alaska State Legislature's House Finance Committee on May 28. He said the borough does not hold public safety powers but that "our EMT service is all borough-provided outside of the city of Fairbanks."

The Assembly Finance Committee was scheduled to consider a $303,346 replacement ambulance contract with Rocky Mountain Emergency Vehicles at its Sept. 3 meeting. The borough has posted an agenda for that meeting but no minutes.

The grant covers one year. Who pays to crew and maintain the bus after that is a question for the city.