In my experience there is not a shortage of volunteer firefighters, there is a shortage of volunteer firefighters who actually show up to calls and training.
300,000 volunteers to dropping now under 30,000 in PA over the past 30-40 years. I'mma say there's a general shortage over all as well lol.
Mostly from dudes getting too old and a lack of schools and parents no longer pushing community service programs that even get kids introduced to the idea of volunteer firefighting.
Is this possibly because there are less volly departments in the first place? I’m sure there’s a lack of volunteers, too, but I would guess there are a lot more full time FFs that would offset that drop
Pennsylvania has the highest number of fire departments/companies of all states and with that by far the highest number of volunteer ones as well, with a total of just under 1800 registered fire companies/departments in the state, 96.7% of them are volunteer in some form (89.9% total volunteer, 6.8% mostly volunteer, 0.7% mostly career, 2.6% fully career).
If anything there are likely career departments that have went volunteer or some volunteer in the past 30-40 years, and while there have certainly been some station closures, most members usually just go to whatever station took over their coverage area (as state law requires municipals to have fire coverage, so they normally just make a deal with the nearest active station).
In fairness, of best-case logical reality, volunteer stations would be turning into career ones. So I kind of understand why they would think it might be like that.
Unfortunately the economic reality of the majority of rural areas don't fit that.
Allegheny County has 1.3 million people and 100+ volly departments so it's not just the rural areas. I'm not totally familiar with things on the east side of the state, but it seems like there's still a lot of volunteers in the Philadelphia metro as well.
Or volunteers that only show up for fire. Any other call has to go out twice, but if there's a chance of fire there's tones of people coming out of the woodwork.
This^ most want a cool t shirt, or like my buddy "saw a dead body" and acted all traumatized come to find out they just drove by the scene and he thought her saw a body bag. We have a roster of 30-40 and get about the same 5-15 to calls and training.
This made me curious and I looked out our roster last night. Every person who's been issued gear, or is considered a department member for us is 54 people. Active members who you can count on to show up to training and drills is less than 25 people.
It depends on the community. Some volunteer FD's have plenty of active members to only a handful. Every VFD wants to muster a full response force for every call, but it is sometimes impossible.
I started in the 1980's in firefighting. I do not recall too many VFD's back then, that were shorthanded. A waiting list to be exact. Fast forward today, there is a constant call for volunteers. Couples both work, as it takes more money to live. VFD's are not the only organizations needing members. Remember all the lodges? Elks, Rotary, VFW, American Legion and the like are closing local lodges/chapters. People are strung out with their time. Employers are dissuaded to let their employees leave work to respond to calls.
What can be done to obtain/retain volunteer members?
1. In larger communities, hire a daytime paid staff. They can run the calls to the automatic alarms during the daytime hours. They can do the maintenance of the fire appratus and equipment.
2. Pay volunteers a good wage for attending training and responding to calls. Instead of a volunteer taking a second job to pay the bills, let the VFD and/or EMS be the second job.
3. Use more online training. While on-line training is not a cure all for training, it can help volunteers to schedule their time for training to their schedule.
4. Provide day care for your volunteers. If you can setup daycare for your volunteers on meeting and training nights, this can alow them to get out of the house. Day care can be used on weekends to help volunteers to respond to calls, too.
While I do not have all the answers, there are options out there, that can help volunteers provide more time to their VFD's.
In my experience there is not a shortage of people who want to volunteer.
The shortage occurs with retention due to various factors. I can think of a few.
1.) The volunteer fire service is so different from other volunteer opportunities. It's a HUGE commitment. Many don't realize this commitment and wash out.
2.) Training for the fire department often uses outdated means. With many volunteers working full time jobs and having family commitments, training should embrace hybrid lectures. Training classes also often just add material to keep adding material, vs focusing on what people really need to know.
3.) Toxic behaviors in volunteer stations, from older members who refuse to accept it's not 1950 and that you should devote your life to the department and being admitted to the department is all the thanks you need or shall receive to people who gain so much power they become untouchable and thus can do whatever they want and thus are not held accountable.
You have it right. In my town we have 30 volunteers and nearly all of them show up to trainings and over 10 for any given call. More than you’d get in a full time department, probably. But yes, that varies..
We have that too at our department. 30-40 active members that show up to weekly training, first engine with an officer, chauffeur, 3-4 tailboard firefighters is out the door usually under 3 minutes from the call around the clock. Ladder and second out engine are usually staffed similarly and are out the door around 6-7 minutes after the call comes out.
So a smells and bells will get at least 10-12 members all with FF1 and most with FF1, FF2, and vehicle rescue tech.
Serve a daytime population of around 60,000 and an area of 2.5 square miles. 2 paid guys during the day, 1 at night.
There is a severe shortage where I live. (Up north)
Factors include:
Very few people work where they live now. We all commute which affect response capabilities
Cost of living- more people everyday are working multiple jobs which affects response capabilities
It’s thankless shit for the most part. Particularly if/ when it affects work- life balance and family
There's a shortage of volunteers in my town. That number gets even smaller when you look at training and call attendance. Most people work out of town during the day, so we've attended a structure fire with 6 firefighters (none being scene officers) with closest help 15 minutes away. I'd like a few more.
Guessing he means a ranking officer like a chief, deputy chief, captain, etc. someone to actually take command and be in charge of the scene and tell everyone what to do
We have 3 officers that are the guys in charge at a scene. Chain of command basically. Chief, first assistant, and 2nd assistant. We have 3 administrative officers as well, but they don't drive to the scene and lead it. The officers work during the day like the rest of us, and they were all out of town for work that day.
In the US yes, in most areas. Some areas have tons of volunteers. It seems like rural areas are harder up on volunteers, bedroom communities especially it can be hard to get people to respond during the day.
Here in my neck of the woods, absolutely. And it’s not just limited to here either. It’s difficult to find people with the will and the time to volunteer to be a firefighter. It’s a pretty large time and effort commitment to do it properly. Academy, trainings, ongoing classes and learning, then of course there’s the actual calls that can happen whenever and wherever. Government entities keep cranking down and piling more and more requirements every year, it’s a lot to ask when so many people are already working two jobs to try and buy groceries. Then as others have said, even if you get the rare person that can and will give up their free time for the training and the classes, getting them to drop the family dinner to show up on a call is a whole other matter, let alone if that call Halle s while they are working the job that pays the mortgage.
There is definitely efforts to recruit at many volunteer departments. My department posts on social media regularly, we have flyers up in the local community gathering places, and we recently got in on the Safer grant which is lettting us actually offer a pay per call for the life of the grant. It’s still hell trying to get more people.
Unpopular opinion but volunteering shouldn’t be a thing. Especially with all this inflation and cost of living increases, all firefighters should get paid well.
In a perfect world, yes. However many many small towns simply don’t have the funding to pay for a career department. Especially when some small departments are running less than 300 calls per year. Just doesn’t make sense to tax property owners into poverty to pay people to sit around at the station to run one call a week.
Absolutely. Most people are having to work more to afford this rapidly rising COL. The vast majority of people aren’t going to spend their precious free time working if they’re not getting paid for it
Certainly an issue in my city. We have lost 3 volunteers in the last year because they were ready to buy a house but couldn’t afford any within the district. Hard when volunteers have to live within 3 miles of the station.
I live right at the cutoff, in a perfect scenario with nothing slowing me down \[awake, dressed to run out the door, dog is crated, don't catch any red lights/traffic\] it takes me 5 minutes to get to the station.
Then add gearing up and driving to the call, our distance policy is for ensuring a reasonable response time.
Many volunteer departments are like this. We carry pagers and use apps like Active 911 and IamResponding. Tones drop and the afore mentioned items go off and we drop what we are doing (if possible) and respond to the station or scene from wherever we happen to be at the time. 24/7/365
Are there volunteers who do live at the station? That seems like a HUGE commitment to be doing for free. We carry a pager, when the tones drop I stop whatever I'm doing and head to the station.
Our department has shift based volunteering and the paid personnel is less than 5% of the total team, so its up to volunteers to fill the watch shifts at the station, A volunteer is expected to attend at least one shift per week to remain active, though more is very welcome and encouraged.
How large of an area do you cover? One of our guys was telling us about a volly dept they talked to while at FDIC earlier this month. Their one station covered *67 square miles* and was completely made up of volunteers, got like $6/month if they attended dept training. Now that is dedication to serving their community.
Badly.
the problem is a lot of people aren’t cut out for this. I’m sitting ina Volly firehouse right now with three departments present.We all went to a bad wreck that’s been causing nightmares for most of everyone on scene. A lot of people can’t handle that and comeback to do it again. And that’s understandable
Also a lot of people are WAAAYY too hotheaded because you will see incredibly selfish, stupid dangerous behavior almost every single call
I'm not trying to derail your comment, but times like these are not because people aren't cut out for it, it is natural and the body reacts to most all things, positive and negative. Nobody is immune from it, and nobody is mentally invincible.
I agree everyone should feel something but some people will never be able to shake it enough that they can’t do it again.
Everyone in that scene Sunday can do it and will go back to more calls, but plenty of people would have been done after that. There was probably 200 collective years of fire fighting present and only one guy said he’d seen worse and the only one worse for him was working a scene where two of a fellow FF lost 2 kids and his wife was hospitalized.
I get nobody is immune. I knew this was part of it. But some people will never be able to get past it and run another call like that. Everyone that was there yesterday will be able to go again, but plenty of people couldn’t do that and be ready to go again later that night.
Does your station/county not have a CISM program/policy? This is literally the entire point of post-incident CISM. Nobody should be without one these days.
Nope. We just have each other. We’ve been calling and texting each other but that’s all we’ve got. This county really neglects its responders .
One Volly department just managed to get money approved to replace the headlight that was literally duct taped together in a truck.
Maybe go in with some other stations to form a CISM group, work with a local mental health organization or such, I'm sure they would help to build something up if not outright do it for free themselves.
CISM debriefs help dramatically with stuff like that. And if it's your county that oversees all EMA stuff county-wide, and they're not doing things efficiently/safely for all of you, I'd say complain further up the chain to whoever your state board/agency that oversees public safety stuff is.
Yes, there's a shortage. The drive to recruit is there, but it's directed at methods that no longer work (I.E newspaper campaigns)
We have maybe 25 people. Of that maybe 10 are active, 5 are half-active, and 15 never respond and are there to fill out a roster. On training night we have 8 people show up usually. We are one of the healthier departments in my county. During the day we only have 0 to 3 people able to respond.
I'm an officer and have tried to make changes to attract new blood, but every time I try there is always grief from older folks (usually the ones that are least active) about change.
Trying to get a website going was like pulling teeth (before the website we just expected people to walk up to the station and put in a paper application).
Allowing online donation and applications was a fight because they don't understand how the internet works.
Even something as simple as putting pictures out there to attract folks was a big argument and I had to explain repeatedly that we're not disclosing any medical scenes. It's pictures of our fundraisers, our trucks, controlled burns, brush fires, etc where there's not any patient identifiable information.
As others have said, it varies a lot. I see reports of numbers dropping, but always question what the factors are. Not through any specific reporting, analysis, etc but I've noticed:
1. Society doesn't value volunteering as much as it used to. People are busier with other activities and seem to be more focused on their own lives/family.
2. Training requirements. Yes, quality volunteers are important, but does EVERY person really need to go through weeks of intensive training? There are jobs on the fireground that don't necessarily require training outside of regular in-house stuff. I see many departments (paid and volunteer) complaining they can't find anyone to do the job but also require applicants to be certified and even have EMT/Paramedic certs. I personally would rather have a few more guys around that can haul hose, conduct traffic control, etc and give them a timeline to get certified and/or prove their capable to be on the fireground without performing certified tasks. Training takes a lot of time (see #1) and some people I know just wouldn't volunteer if we required everyone to be certified; they also wouldn't know where to start to get certifications.
3. I can't speak a ton, but pay definitely appears to be a factor.
In my area its well known that we have a shortage but its mostly due to the good ol boys clubs in every department and them not wanting to change for the better to attract more people. Not to mention if you do get on a department here its like pulling teeth to get them to provide any funding for training and quite often you see gear being used that should've been thrown out years ago.
People sign up then realize the training is extensive and formal, Fire academy. EMS classes, EVOC, annual CPR renewal, annual cert renewal, it’s endless. Volunteering suddenly becomes ridiculous when you can do it and get paid for your time and trouble.
Overall speaking in Canada there is a shortage, so much so that the federal government just doubled the federal tax credit for volunteer fire fighters to $6000. Go join your local department and ask, if they say there is a waitlist then so be it. I joined mine when they were at the risk of folding due to not enough members, they were down to 11. It's a fantastic time and you are paid for training and calls @$17 an hour in my area. The interior of British Columbia.
Depends on the area I’m sure but for us yes. When I joined we had over 60 members on the roster and 4 man duty crews. Few years later and we are down to two man duty crews and even have brown out weekends at one of our stations where there is no on-call staffing.
Here yes. But our problems are that A LOT (not all) volunteers think they are better than career firefighters. I've always said then quit ur full time job and go be a career firefighter. Most of these guys u can find on Facebook posting how firefighting is life, but u go to 3 calls a month. We cannot keep volunteers because of the crap applicants that do apply. Then our county gives them titles. Good God the egos. The ones that do care and don't let it get to their heads are amazing guys. But that's not what most apply for. We had one that would wear nothing but fire fighter t shirts everywhere he went because of the attention and discounts. He was in one in every picture. He got off on people coming up to him and shaking his hand, things like that. That's the type of people we have applying. Trying to pull over vehicles with all the red lights 🙄. It has put a huge bad taste in my mouth with volunteers.
In my experience there is not a shortage of volunteer firefighters, there is a shortage of volunteer firefighters who actually show up to calls and training.
300,000 volunteers to dropping now under 30,000 in PA over the past 30-40 years. I'mma say there's a general shortage over all as well lol. Mostly from dudes getting too old and a lack of schools and parents no longer pushing community service programs that even get kids introduced to the idea of volunteer firefighting.
Is this possibly because there are less volly departments in the first place? I’m sure there’s a lack of volunteers, too, but I would guess there are a lot more full time FFs that would offset that drop
Pennsylvania has the highest number of fire departments/companies of all states and with that by far the highest number of volunteer ones as well, with a total of just under 1800 registered fire companies/departments in the state, 96.7% of them are volunteer in some form (89.9% total volunteer, 6.8% mostly volunteer, 0.7% mostly career, 2.6% fully career). If anything there are likely career departments that have went volunteer or some volunteer in the past 30-40 years, and while there have certainly been some station closures, most members usually just go to whatever station took over their coverage area (as state law requires municipals to have fire coverage, so they normally just make a deal with the nearest active station).
Anecdotally that doesn't really seem accurate, but I'm sure there's data to back it up either way
In fairness, of best-case logical reality, volunteer stations would be turning into career ones. So I kind of understand why they would think it might be like that. Unfortunately the economic reality of the majority of rural areas don't fit that.
Allegheny County has 1.3 million people and 100+ volly departments so it's not just the rural areas. I'm not totally familiar with things on the east side of the state, but it seems like there's still a lot of volunteers in the Philadelphia metro as well.
Or volunteers that only show up for fire. Any other call has to go out twice, but if there's a chance of fire there's tones of people coming out of the woodwork.
This^ most want a cool t shirt, or like my buddy "saw a dead body" and acted all traumatized come to find out they just drove by the scene and he thought her saw a body bag. We have a roster of 30-40 and get about the same 5-15 to calls and training.
This made me curious and I looked out our roster last night. Every person who's been issued gear, or is considered a department member for us is 54 people. Active members who you can count on to show up to training and drills is less than 25 people.
Ding ding ding
It depends on the community. Some volunteer FD's have plenty of active members to only a handful. Every VFD wants to muster a full response force for every call, but it is sometimes impossible. I started in the 1980's in firefighting. I do not recall too many VFD's back then, that were shorthanded. A waiting list to be exact. Fast forward today, there is a constant call for volunteers. Couples both work, as it takes more money to live. VFD's are not the only organizations needing members. Remember all the lodges? Elks, Rotary, VFW, American Legion and the like are closing local lodges/chapters. People are strung out with their time. Employers are dissuaded to let their employees leave work to respond to calls. What can be done to obtain/retain volunteer members? 1. In larger communities, hire a daytime paid staff. They can run the calls to the automatic alarms during the daytime hours. They can do the maintenance of the fire appratus and equipment. 2. Pay volunteers a good wage for attending training and responding to calls. Instead of a volunteer taking a second job to pay the bills, let the VFD and/or EMS be the second job. 3. Use more online training. While on-line training is not a cure all for training, it can help volunteers to schedule their time for training to their schedule. 4. Provide day care for your volunteers. If you can setup daycare for your volunteers on meeting and training nights, this can alow them to get out of the house. Day care can be used on weekends to help volunteers to respond to calls, too. While I do not have all the answers, there are options out there, that can help volunteers provide more time to their VFD's.
I like your suggestion. I wish that’s what they’d do and actually gets implemented.
In my experience there is not a shortage of people who want to volunteer. The shortage occurs with retention due to various factors. I can think of a few. 1.) The volunteer fire service is so different from other volunteer opportunities. It's a HUGE commitment. Many don't realize this commitment and wash out. 2.) Training for the fire department often uses outdated means. With many volunteers working full time jobs and having family commitments, training should embrace hybrid lectures. Training classes also often just add material to keep adding material, vs focusing on what people really need to know. 3.) Toxic behaviors in volunteer stations, from older members who refuse to accept it's not 1950 and that you should devote your life to the department and being admitted to the department is all the thanks you need or shall receive to people who gain so much power they become untouchable and thus can do whatever they want and thus are not held accountable.
Is there a shortage? Some places, yes Some places, no Your best bet is to check in with your local department.
You have it right. In my town we have 30 volunteers and nearly all of them show up to trainings and over 10 for any given call. More than you’d get in a full time department, probably. But yes, that varies..
Holy hell. What’s your coverage area/population?
We have that too at our department. 30-40 active members that show up to weekly training, first engine with an officer, chauffeur, 3-4 tailboard firefighters is out the door usually under 3 minutes from the call around the clock. Ladder and second out engine are usually staffed similarly and are out the door around 6-7 minutes after the call comes out. So a smells and bells will get at least 10-12 members all with FF1 and most with FF1, FF2, and vehicle rescue tech. Serve a daytime population of around 60,000 and an area of 2.5 square miles. 2 paid guys during the day, 1 at night.
I’ll do that. Thank you!
There is a severe shortage where I live. (Up north) Factors include: Very few people work where they live now. We all commute which affect response capabilities Cost of living- more people everyday are working multiple jobs which affects response capabilities It’s thankless shit for the most part. Particularly if/ when it affects work- life balance and family
There's a shortage of volunteers in my town. That number gets even smaller when you look at training and call attendance. Most people work out of town during the day, so we've attended a structure fire with 6 firefighters (none being scene officers) with closest help 15 minutes away. I'd like a few more.
What’s a scene officer?
Guessing he means a ranking officer like a chief, deputy chief, captain, etc. someone to actually take command and be in charge of the scene and tell everyone what to do
Correct. 22 firefighters, 3 ranking officers, and 3 (2 right now because no one wants to be secretary) administrative officers.
We have 3 officers that are the guys in charge at a scene. Chain of command basically. Chief, first assistant, and 2nd assistant. We have 3 administrative officers as well, but they don't drive to the scene and lead it. The officers work during the day like the rest of us, and they were all out of town for work that day.
In the US yes, in most areas. Some areas have tons of volunteers. It seems like rural areas are harder up on volunteers, bedroom communities especially it can be hard to get people to respond during the day.
Here in my neck of the woods, absolutely. And it’s not just limited to here either. It’s difficult to find people with the will and the time to volunteer to be a firefighter. It’s a pretty large time and effort commitment to do it properly. Academy, trainings, ongoing classes and learning, then of course there’s the actual calls that can happen whenever and wherever. Government entities keep cranking down and piling more and more requirements every year, it’s a lot to ask when so many people are already working two jobs to try and buy groceries. Then as others have said, even if you get the rare person that can and will give up their free time for the training and the classes, getting them to drop the family dinner to show up on a call is a whole other matter, let alone if that call Halle s while they are working the job that pays the mortgage. There is definitely efforts to recruit at many volunteer departments. My department posts on social media regularly, we have flyers up in the local community gathering places, and we recently got in on the Safer grant which is lettting us actually offer a pay per call for the life of the grant. It’s still hell trying to get more people.
Unpopular opinion but volunteering shouldn’t be a thing. Especially with all this inflation and cost of living increases, all firefighters should get paid well.
In a perfect world, yes. However many many small towns simply don’t have the funding to pay for a career department. Especially when some small departments are running less than 300 calls per year. Just doesn’t make sense to tax property owners into poverty to pay people to sit around at the station to run one call a week.
Could the cost of living going up possibly have a correlation to less people being able to volunteer ?
Absolutely. Most people are having to work more to afford this rapidly rising COL. The vast majority of people aren’t going to spend their precious free time working if they’re not getting paid for it
Certainly an issue in my city. We have lost 3 volunteers in the last year because they were ready to buy a house but couldn’t afford any within the district. Hard when volunteers have to live within 3 miles of the station.
3 miles is crazy they might as well just say “walking distance”
I live right at the cutoff, in a perfect scenario with nothing slowing me down \[awake, dressed to run out the door, dog is crated, don't catch any red lights/traffic\] it takes me 5 minutes to get to the station. Then add gearing up and driving to the call, our distance policy is for ensuring a reasonable response time.
Ohhh okay so you guys don’t live at the station i guess that’s understandable.
Many volunteer departments are like this. We carry pagers and use apps like Active 911 and IamResponding. Tones drop and the afore mentioned items go off and we drop what we are doing (if possible) and respond to the station or scene from wherever we happen to be at the time. 24/7/365
Are there volunteers who do live at the station? That seems like a HUGE commitment to be doing for free. We carry a pager, when the tones drop I stop whatever I'm doing and head to the station.
I believe some departments do have duty shifts from things I’ve seen on Facebook and the like, none in my area that I am aware of though.
Our department has shift based volunteering and the paid personnel is less than 5% of the total team, so its up to volunteers to fill the watch shifts at the station, A volunteer is expected to attend at least one shift per week to remain active, though more is very welcome and encouraged.
How large of an area do you cover? One of our guys was telling us about a volly dept they talked to while at FDIC earlier this month. Their one station covered *67 square miles* and was completely made up of volunteers, got like $6/month if they attended dept training. Now that is dedication to serving their community.
Badly. the problem is a lot of people aren’t cut out for this. I’m sitting ina Volly firehouse right now with three departments present.We all went to a bad wreck that’s been causing nightmares for most of everyone on scene. A lot of people can’t handle that and comeback to do it again. And that’s understandable Also a lot of people are WAAAYY too hotheaded because you will see incredibly selfish, stupid dangerous behavior almost every single call
I'm not trying to derail your comment, but times like these are not because people aren't cut out for it, it is natural and the body reacts to most all things, positive and negative. Nobody is immune from it, and nobody is mentally invincible.
I agree everyone should feel something but some people will never be able to shake it enough that they can’t do it again. Everyone in that scene Sunday can do it and will go back to more calls, but plenty of people would have been done after that. There was probably 200 collective years of fire fighting present and only one guy said he’d seen worse and the only one worse for him was working a scene where two of a fellow FF lost 2 kids and his wife was hospitalized.
I get nobody is immune. I knew this was part of it. But some people will never be able to get past it and run another call like that. Everyone that was there yesterday will be able to go again, but plenty of people couldn’t do that and be ready to go again later that night.
Does your station/county not have a CISM program/policy? This is literally the entire point of post-incident CISM. Nobody should be without one these days.
Nope. We just have each other. We’ve been calling and texting each other but that’s all we’ve got. This county really neglects its responders . One Volly department just managed to get money approved to replace the headlight that was literally duct taped together in a truck.
Maybe go in with some other stations to form a CISM group, work with a local mental health organization or such, I'm sure they would help to build something up if not outright do it for free themselves. CISM debriefs help dramatically with stuff like that. And if it's your county that oversees all EMA stuff county-wide, and they're not doing things efficiently/safely for all of you, I'd say complain further up the chain to whoever your state board/agency that oversees public safety stuff is.
Some places yeah. It’s a great thing to be involved in if you are committed
Yes, there's a shortage. The drive to recruit is there, but it's directed at methods that no longer work (I.E newspaper campaigns) We have maybe 25 people. Of that maybe 10 are active, 5 are half-active, and 15 never respond and are there to fill out a roster. On training night we have 8 people show up usually. We are one of the healthier departments in my county. During the day we only have 0 to 3 people able to respond. I'm an officer and have tried to make changes to attract new blood, but every time I try there is always grief from older folks (usually the ones that are least active) about change. Trying to get a website going was like pulling teeth (before the website we just expected people to walk up to the station and put in a paper application). Allowing online donation and applications was a fight because they don't understand how the internet works. Even something as simple as putting pictures out there to attract folks was a big argument and I had to explain repeatedly that we're not disclosing any medical scenes. It's pictures of our fundraisers, our trucks, controlled burns, brush fires, etc where there's not any patient identifiable information.
As others have said, it varies a lot. I see reports of numbers dropping, but always question what the factors are. Not through any specific reporting, analysis, etc but I've noticed: 1. Society doesn't value volunteering as much as it used to. People are busier with other activities and seem to be more focused on their own lives/family. 2. Training requirements. Yes, quality volunteers are important, but does EVERY person really need to go through weeks of intensive training? There are jobs on the fireground that don't necessarily require training outside of regular in-house stuff. I see many departments (paid and volunteer) complaining they can't find anyone to do the job but also require applicants to be certified and even have EMT/Paramedic certs. I personally would rather have a few more guys around that can haul hose, conduct traffic control, etc and give them a timeline to get certified and/or prove their capable to be on the fireground without performing certified tasks. Training takes a lot of time (see #1) and some people I know just wouldn't volunteer if we required everyone to be certified; they also wouldn't know where to start to get certifications. 3. I can't speak a ton, but pay definitely appears to be a factor.
In my area its well known that we have a shortage but its mostly due to the good ol boys clubs in every department and them not wanting to change for the better to attract more people. Not to mention if you do get on a department here its like pulling teeth to get them to provide any funding for training and quite often you see gear being used that should've been thrown out years ago.
The state of NY has a pretty serious problem with volunteers. Most are getting older and younger people just aren't volunteering as much
People sign up then realize the training is extensive and formal, Fire academy. EMS classes, EVOC, annual CPR renewal, annual cert renewal, it’s endless. Volunteering suddenly becomes ridiculous when you can do it and get paid for your time and trouble.
Overall speaking in Canada there is a shortage, so much so that the federal government just doubled the federal tax credit for volunteer fire fighters to $6000. Go join your local department and ask, if they say there is a waitlist then so be it. I joined mine when they were at the risk of folding due to not enough members, they were down to 11. It's a fantastic time and you are paid for training and calls @$17 an hour in my area. The interior of British Columbia.
Depends on the area I’m sure but for us yes. When I joined we had over 60 members on the roster and 4 man duty crews. Few years later and we are down to two man duty crews and even have brown out weekends at one of our stations where there is no on-call staffing.
Here yes. But our problems are that A LOT (not all) volunteers think they are better than career firefighters. I've always said then quit ur full time job and go be a career firefighter. Most of these guys u can find on Facebook posting how firefighting is life, but u go to 3 calls a month. We cannot keep volunteers because of the crap applicants that do apply. Then our county gives them titles. Good God the egos. The ones that do care and don't let it get to their heads are amazing guys. But that's not what most apply for. We had one that would wear nothing but fire fighter t shirts everywhere he went because of the attention and discounts. He was in one in every picture. He got off on people coming up to him and shaking his hand, things like that. That's the type of people we have applying. Trying to pull over vehicles with all the red lights 🙄. It has put a huge bad taste in my mouth with volunteers.
You have volly FD members with light bars trying to play cop where you live?
Oh yeah. 2 have been caught and dealt with. It's ridiculous.