Lt. Erik Knudsen, left, and Falmouth Fire Chief Howard Rice at the Foreside Fire Station. Kate Irish Collins / File

FALMOUTH — The Fire Department is offering a scholarship in an effort to attract young people to careers in firefighting or emergency medical services.

The $750 scholarship is available to students getting ready for college. Applications are due by 4 p.m. Aug. 23, and the funding will be awarded in early September.

The scholarship is open to any recent high school graduate who is a resident of Falmouth and interested in studying any fire science or emergency medicine field, including nursing.

Applicants must show they’ve either been accepted into or plan to enroll in a post-secondary course of study related to the field.

Scholarship applications are available on the town website at falmouthme.org, and must include a one-page summary of the student’s plans, along with two letters of reference. Applications are also available at Central Station on Bucknam Road.

Applications can be dropped off or mailed to Falmouth Fire-EMS, 8 Bucknam Road, Falmouth, ME 04105. Call 781-2610 for more information.

All applications will be reviewed by a five-member panel of Falmouth Fire-EMS members, according to Fire Chief Howard Rice.

“We just want to promote our field and we want to share the calling we all have to serve others,” Rice said this week.

“We hope anyone who has a passion for helping others will consider a career in the fire sciences,” Rice said. “We’re just excited to help make it easier for a student to pursue an education in firefighting. It’s great that we can help, even in this small way.”

Rice said since the funding is available now and the selection committee is also set to go. “We wanted to get going on this inaugural scholarship as soon as possible,” he said. “We didn’t want to miss an opportunity to help a student headed off to college this fall.”

He said funding for the scholarship came from donations, bequests and the Fire Department’s regular bottle drive. “We definitely hope to continue this into the future,” Rice said.

Anyone interested in supporting the scholarship can make a direct donation to the Fire-EMS Scholarship fund, he said.

“We hope and would love for these students to become firefighters and come back to town someday,” Rice said.

Right now, he said, the Falmouth Fire-EMS Department is predominantly on-call members, so “we (fully) recognize the value of having such emergency service-trained providers living in our community.

“We also believe in education being the foundation for a successful future as a provider of emergency services, whether it’s as a career firefighter or paramedic, a volunteer or a call firefighter or EMT.”