Casper fire chief asks council to pursue $20,000 Occidental Petroleum grant for reserve air packs

Casper Fire Chief Black asked the Casper City Council on Oct. 11 to pursue a $20,000 Occidental Petroleum grant to buy two self-contained breathing apparatus (air packs) and two replacement air bottles for the department's reserve ladder truck.

The request, presented at the start of the meeting, sought council permission to apply for the grant; Chief Black said there is no local match requirement. "I'm just here today to request your permission to pursue, Occidental Petroleum Grant, in the amount of $20,000," he told the mayor and council. He said the equipment would be installed on the reserve ladder truck so the department would have spares available during larger incidents.

Council members voiced no objections. After the chief's presentation, a council member asked, "Are we okay with that?" and one council member replied, "Yeah. Awesome," indicating informal council concurrence to proceed with the application.

The chief also referred to a prior, smaller award for wildland packs; he said the department had received a grant last year for wildland equipment and hoped for further awards this year. The council did not take a recorded roll-call vote during the meeting transcript on this item and did not provide an explicit motion on the record; staff interpreted the exchange as permission to pursue the funding.

The chief did not provide a procurement timeline in the meeting and did not identify the expected delivery or installation dates for the requested equipment. If the grant is awarded, staff indicated the equipment would be used to increase on-scene redundancy by placing additional air packs and bottles on the reserve ladder truck.