Volunteer firefighters dwindle as calls for service skyrocket
A car barrels off a road and into a tree.
Fire plumes from the eaves of a home.
A tree crashes down blocking access to a road.
A basement bubbles with a foot of flood water.
Traffic snarls at a busy intersection.
These incidents sound like they could be handled by three or four or five different government departments or agencies. And while sometimes that many agencies end up getting involved, there is one group that remains constant among those responding to such calls – volunteer firefighters.
Volunteer firefighters make up the overwhelming majority of firefighters in Fayette County, but their ranks are steadily declining, forcing departments to work to bolster recruits and retain the firefighters they do have.
Brian VanSickle, Farmington Volunteer Fire Department chief, said that as the problem with declining volunteer participation worsens locally, he is aware that the issue is not something that is exclusive to Fayette County, or southwestern Pennsylvania.
VanSickle, who has been chief in Farmington for 14 years, said that although it appears younger generations are interested in volunteer fire service, time constraints and family concerns most often leave him with the same 10 to 15 firefighters turning out for calls on a daily basis.
“We have 65 guys on the roster, but most of them just can’t do it because they have their own responsibilities to tend to,” VanSickle said. “With a bad economy, we have people working two jobs to take care of their families and they aren’t able to respond.”
Perry Township Volunteer Fire Department Assistant Chief A.J. Boni agreed.
“I think it is something everybody is facing,” Boni said. “We try to entice them, but it is a lot of commitment. They start out with the commitment, but they realize it is like a job and can’t do it.”
According to the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC), volunteer firefighters comprise 69 percent of the more than 1,100,450 firefighters across the country, and about two-thirds of the nation’s fire departments are staffed by volunteers. Volunteer firefighters dipped by 59,000 over a two-year span from 2008 through 2010 and have fallen about 18 percent since 1984.
In Fayette County alone, four dozen volunteer fire departments account for nearly all fire personnel responding to fire and emergency situations, and the numbers of volunteers responding are falling annually, local officials said.
“The trend is that the number of volunteers are down, but they still make up a huge component of the nation’s fire service,” NVFC spokesperson Kimberly Quiros said, noting that while volunteers are declining, calls for service are spiking. “Fire numbers are not up, but other types of calls are way up,” she said.
VanSickle said that one of the reasons the volunteer departments are so busy is that they have become a catchall for 911 calls that no one else wants to handle.
“Whatever the call is for, we are running it,” VanSickle said.
Boni agreed: “Being a volunteer firefighter is a lot like being a township supervisor, whether it is a cat in a tree or a house fire. It is a commitment to serve community. You know, you have a tree down, you have a rock slide, you’ve got flooding – we are going. It is a lot of things that local government and the state Department of Transportation could handle, but do not.”
Quiros said that 911 dispatches of volunteer fire departments have skyrocketed for emergency medical situations too.
“These fire departments — a lot is being asked of them nowadays” Quiros said. “Search and rescue. HAZMAT. And only the very biggest cities have all paid companies. (Smaller communities) really rely on volunteers to be there. They are such an important part of our nation’s fire service.”
And while they are being relied on more and more, and fewer and fewer volunteers are there to shoulder the burden, the cost to provide volunteers is increasing too, adding yet another layer of difficulty for VanSickle, Boni and volunteer fire officials across the county.
VanSickle said volunteer departments are forced to try and pay for the tools and training necessary to equip their firefighters with little more than a donated budget.
“When I started out as chief, you could get a set of turnout gear for a firefighter for about $800. Now we are paying three times that,” VanSickle said.
“So our guys are having to work harder at fund raising too and are being asked to give of themselves even more.”
All the while the overworked volunteers — scrambling to sell cash bash tickets or hoagies to make ends meet — are saving local, state and federal government billions annually, with an estimated annual abatement exceeding $140 billion, according to NVFC.
But the future isn’t all bleak for volunteer firefighters, Quiros said, noting that there are new incentive programs cropping up across the country and other programs being implemented to try and alleviate the strain on the volunteer fire service.
“A lot of local departments and communities that are working to help their departments are starting to offer incentives like retirement programs and tax incentives,” Quiros said.
Additionally, she said that new groups are being formed to try and help field some of the non-emergency calls — citing a group that has recently undertaken snake removal from roadways in Arizona to help reduce the calls being fielded by volunteer firefighters.
“There are members in every community that want to support the fire department, but not necessarily volunteer,” she said.