FEMA provides Public Assistance funding for the use of Applicant-owned equipment (force account equipment) based on FEMA, State, Territorial, Tribal, or Local equipment rates.

An Applicant may not have sufficient equipment to effectively respond to an incident. If the Applicant purchases equipment that it justifiably needs to respond effectively to the incident, FEMA provides Public Assistance funding for both the purchase price and either:

• The use of the equipment based on equipment rates (without the ownership and depreciation components); or
• The actual fuel and maintenance costs.

Equipment rates are only applied to the time the Applicant is actually operating equipment.

• Although costs associated with mobilizing equipment to a project site are eligible, costs for standby time are not eligible unless the equipment operator uses the equipment intermittently for more than half of the working hours for a given day.
• In this case the intermittent standby time is eligible.

FEMA provides Public Assistance funding for force account equipment usage based on FEMA, State, Territorial, Tribal, or local equipment rates in accordance with the specific criteria. The following six screens will expand on the specific criteria for the different equipment rates.