Fire officials in St. Tammany Parish are hot under the collar after learning earlier this month that nearly $1 million in federal fire prevention grant money was earmarked for the ACORN Institute in New Orleans.

Fire District 1 in Slidell and Fire District 3 in Lacombe had applied for grants through the Assistance to Firefighters program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Both were turned down.

“We had asked for a little over $100,000, and we were denied,” said Fire District 3 Chief Chuck Flynn. “Then I found out that ACORN was approved for $1 million, and that just made no sense, so I sent a letter to David Vitter.” Flynn was hoping to install smoke detectors in low-income homes throughout the Lacombe area and that by doing so his department would prevent a repeat of a January incident that killed four children. In Slidell, FD1 had asked for about $20,000 for its Hazard House, a portable teaching aid that shows all of the possible fire hazards that can be found in a home.

The grant to ACORN in the amount of $997,402 was awarded on Sept. 4, just shortly before a controversial video surfaced in which ACORN employees were seen advising two filmmakers posing as a prostitute and a pimp on how to skirt tax laws. A few weeks later, Congress voted to cut off all funding to the group, thus freezing the grant.

The grant was one of the largest issued by FEMA under the program, and one of only three awarded in Louisiana, the others going to the State Fire Marshal’s Office in Baton Rouge and the Monroe Fire Department.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Vitter cited ACORN’s “history of abuse of federal dollars,” and asked that the grant be rescinded.

“When so many fire departments throughout the nation are struggling for funding for important and lifesaving projects, how is it that a non-fire department, with no clear expertise in fire safety and prevention, is given such a large award for fire safety?” Vitter asked in his letter.

It is unclear if the money will be redistributed, although Clark Stevens, a FEMA spokesperson, confirmed that the money would not be awarded to ACORN.

“No funds have been provided and the grant has been frozen, as a result of the resolution passed by Congress,” said Stevens.

According to FEMA regulations, the grant program has very specific window of opportunity in which applications are made and grants awarded, and that period has passed. Flynn said he did not expect to receive any additional funding at this point.

“I don’t know if we’ll get anything out of it,” said Flynn. “But the funds to ACORN are frozen, and that’s the big thing.”