The Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded a grant to the Northfield Township Fire Department to keep both the firefighters and their equipment safer.

The nearly $20,000 grant will provide reflective and higher visibility equipment and striping to the department as part of its Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. The grant will also provide training on apparatus placement on the highway to protect police, fire, tow and emergency medical services personnel.

Director of Public Safety William Wagner said in a statement that three emergency workers in Washtenaw County have died assisting motorists on the highway in the past four years.

He said two of the department’s pieces of equipment have also been significantly damaged on US-23 in recent years, with personnel injury or death being narrowly averted.

The news comes just days after a Van Buren Township fire truck was struck by a semi tractor-trailer blocking a lane of I-94 while responding to a vehicle fire on Saturday.