CCFD applies for multi-million dollar grant for more firefighters [Video]

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Corpus Christi Fire Department recently went before city council to ask for support in applying for the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant to hire more firefighters. 

The grant will help the department work toward having more four-man teams, as opposed to two or three. 

“It’s almost $16.5 million that FEMA will pay the salaries and benefits of all these firefighters for the first three years,” CCFD Deputy Fire Chief Doug Matthijetz said.

He said that having those extra bodies will help bolster the department’s overall head count.

“Right now we have about 24 vacancies,” Mattijetz said. “Our official compliment is 455 firefighters.” 

3NEWS spoke with CCFD Battalion Chief Jim Devisser as he was driving back from teaching a class up in College Station. The course centered around incident …