Federal disaster aid has been made available to all of the State of Texas for responses to the major grass and wild land fires emergencies through out the state since late December. FEMA is in the process of developing a single point of Contact (POC) for each County in Texas. Only Counties will be able to receive the funds and then they will disburse those funds to the FD's affected.

The President has signed a Major Disaster Declaration for all of Texas in relation to these fires. At first only specific named fires and or certain Counties were included in the original declarations made in early January but within days that list was expanded. On January 11th the current in place declaration was signed by the President for all of the State due to the existence of the extreme statewide fire danger.

In a U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) press release, Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison said federal funding in the form of reimbursements has been made available for Texas to supplement state and local recovery efforts. Acting Director Paulison said federal funding in the form of Public Assistance is available for emergency protective measures (firefighting) implemented on or after December 27, 2005 for all eligible counties in the State. According to the Texas Forest Service (TFS) this will translate to an hourly rate of approximately $53.00 per hour, per engine on fires meeting the reimbursement criteria. The aid is being provided under an existing program known as the Fire Management Assistance Grant (FMAG) Program.

The full text of FEMA Press Release Number: HQ-06-010 can be found at http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=22404

The application process for this Declaration has been streamlined by TFS working with FEMA due to the scope and magnitude of the situation.

In order for a County to be paid these funds the FD's in each County must report any eligible fires responded to on or after December 27. 2005 via TFS's new online fire reporting system which can me found at http://tfsfrp.tamu.edu/firereporting/vfd/. This is the only FEMA recognized method of documenting costs per reported fire in the state during this declaration. Upon completion of the online application, the Fire Department will receive an e-mail verifying the receipt of their application and providing them with a user name and password. Departments will then be able to login and access their account information immediately; however they will not be able to submit a fire report until the application has been activated by the system administrator. The department will receive a second e-mail notification once this is done. TFS staff monitors the system during regular business hours.