The Shakopee Fire Department is getting a big boost after the federal government awarded the city $2.6 million. The funding comes from FEMA’s Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant program. The three-year grant will allow Shakopee to hire 12 more full-time firefighters by March.
“It feels great,” said Fire Chief Joe Simon, who took the lead job just a few months ago. But he has spent his nearly 20-year career with the department. He says the department used to have dozens of volunteers and 50 on-call firefighters – none of whom were full-time.
“We had a very strong paid, on-call volunteer force for a very long time,” said Chief Simon. “The problem is, it’s just not very dependable and it’s not reliable.”
He says response times took as many as 10 to 12 minutes. The national standard is between five and seven minutes. An independent audit in 2023 found the department was short-staffed and too slow to respond to calls.
The department responds to about 2,000 calls a year, which has doubled since 2018 as the city continues to grow.
