Fire Prevention & Safety (FP&S): the AFG program most departments skip

Fire Prevention & Safety (FP&S) shares an application window with AFG and SAFER, but almost nobody applies to it with the same effort — because it doesn't fund trucks or gear. It funds prevention, public education, and firefighter safety research. That narrower scope is exactly why it's worth a separate look: less competition for the same pool of federal attention.

What FP&S funds

• Fire prevention programs — smoke alarm installation campaigns, juvenile firesetter intervention, community risk-reduction education.
• Public education — materials and programming aimed at reducing fire deaths and injuries in the community.
• Firefighter safety research and development — studies and initiatives aimed at reducing firefighter injuries and fatalities.

FP&S was part of the same $648 million FY2025 pool that funded AFG and SAFER — it isn't a separate, smaller budget line so much as a different lane inside the same money.

Who tends to win FP&S

Departments with a documented, local risk problem — a specific demographic with disproportionate fire deaths, a rural area with low smoke-alarm penetration, a data-backed juvenile firesetting trend — score better than generic “we want to do more community outreach” applications. The same readiness discipline applies: a reviewer scores completeness and specificity, not good intentions.

Why this is a real opportunity, not a consolation prize

Because FP&S sits in the shadow of AFG's equipment dollars, a well-built prevention or research application often faces a smaller, less saturated applicant pool for the funding available. A department that's building an AFG portfolio anyway — department profile, narrative, past performance — already has most of what an FP&S application needs; the additional lift is documenting the specific community risk the program addresses.

Find out if your department qualifies for FP&S — free →

Real FP&S project types, by category

FEMA doesn't fund “prevention” as a single undifferentiated idea. Awards under the Prevention Activity fall into a recurring set of project categories, and picking the right one — matched to a documented local risk — is most of the application's job.

• Smoke alarm installations (door-to-door). Installation paired with an in-home safety inspection, typically targeted at a specific high-risk neighborhood or demographic rather than a citywide blanket campaign.
• Smoke alarms (other distribution). Alarm distribution and installation projects that don't follow the door-to-door inspection model — community events, partner organization distribution, and similar.
• Sprinkler awareness. Public education specifically about residential and commercial sprinkler systems.
• Risk assessment. Projects that build or improve a department's ability to identify and target its highest fire-risk populations and locations.
• Public education. Materials and programming aimed at reducing fire deaths and injuries community-wide.
• Training. Prevention-focused training for department personnel or community partners.
• Juvenile firesetter intervention. Programs identifying and redirecting at-risk youth firesetting behavior, usually paired with counseling or education partners.
• General prevention/awareness. Everything else that fits the program's intent but doesn't fall neatly into the categories above.

The category you pick should follow directly from the risk you've documented — a department citing low smoke-alarm penetration in a specific census tract belongs in the door-to-door installation category, not “general prevention.”

The Research & Development track vs. the Prevention track

FP&S is actually two separate activities under one program name, and they don't share an applicant pool.

• Prevention Activity — the track covered above: education, outreach and mitigation aimed at high-risk target groups. Fire departments are the primary applicants here.
• Research & Development (R&D) Activity — aimed at improving firefighter safety, health or well-being through research that reduces firefighter fatalities and injuries. Fire departments are not eligible applicants for R&D funding. Eligible applicants are academic institutions and public health, occupational health, and injury-prevention organizations.

That doesn't mean a fire department has no role in R&D. FEMA specifically encourages R&D applicants to partner with fire departments and fire service organizations to support the project from design through dissemination and implementation — so a department's real opening on the R&D side is as a research partner or study site, not as the lead applicant.

How a small volunteer department without research capacity can still compete

A department with no grant writer and no research staff still has real paths into FP&S — they just aren't “write it alone.”

• Lean on the volunteer set-aside. Federal rules require that not less than 25% of available FP&S funds go to volunteer fire departments — a built-in advantage small and rural departments should be citing, not ignoring.
• Join or form a regional project. FP&S has a formal regional-project pathway: an eligible organization can apply on behalf of multiple participating fire departments as a coalition. That spreads the application-writing burden across several departments instead of one, and often produces a stronger, better-documented case than any single small department could build alone.
• Partner with a university or public health department for the research side. Since fire departments can't lead an R&D application, the department's value is as the operational partner — data source, pilot site, implementation partner — for an academic or public-health applicant already positioned to lead one.
• Team with a state or regional fire prevention association. Associations that already track FP&S cycles can co-apply or advise, reducing the research and narrative-writing lift on any one department.

FP&S FAQ

Can a fire department apply for the Research and Development activity?
No. Fire departments aren't eligible applicants for the R&D activity. Eligible applicants are academic institutions and public health, occupational health, and injury-prevention organizations — a department's role there is as a research partner or site, not the lead applicant.

What share of FP&S funding goes to volunteer departments?
Federal rules require at least 25% of available FP&S funds go to volunteer fire departments — a meaningful built-in advantage for small and rural departments applying to this specific program.

Can several small departments apply together?
Yes. FP&S has a formal regional-project pathway where an eligible organization applies on behalf of multiple participating fire departments as a coalition, instead of each department filing its own application.

Does FP&S fund equipment the way AFG does?
No. FP&S funds prevention, education and research projects, not apparatus or PPE — that's AFG's lane. A department applying to both programs is building two different kinds of proof, not one narrative twice.

What kinds of prevention projects actually get funded?
The recurring categories FEMA funds include smoke alarm installation campaigns (often door-to-door with a home safety inspection), sprinkler awareness, public education, juvenile firesetter intervention, risk assessment, training, and general prevention/awareness — a documented local risk should drive which category fits.

Is FP&S really less competitive than AFG's equipment side?
It sits in the shadow of AFG's much larger equipment dollar pool, so it typically draws a smaller, less saturated applicant pool for the funding available. That doesn't mean a vague “we want to do more outreach” application will win — it still loses to one built around a specific, documented risk.