Volunteers

Volunteer fire departments are the backbone of the US fire service. No one has more respect for the spirit of volunteer firefighters- I began my career as a volunteer before moving on to do the job part time, then finally transitioning to being a full time, career firefighter.

There are advantages to both systems. The volunteer system is perfect for rural areas where the department doesn’t see more than a few calls a month. It’s inexpensive in terms of dollars, and this makes it cost effective.

Out of 461 total registered fire departments in Florida, roughly 315 departments use volunteers in some capacity. That ranges from a few auxiliary firefighters who will ride a fire truck along with a full time crew, to the more than 200 departments heavily utilizing volunteers to sustain daily operations.

The disadvantages to the volunteer fire system are:

• you are asking some citizens to assume the burden of protecting the community, while the vast majority of the community enjoys that protection at little to no cost. Those volunteers are paying for the community’s protection with their time, effort, and skill in exchange for a nominal fee or donation to the VFD.
• because their time is limited, volunteers don’t have the time to become as skilled as full time firefighters.
• Also because their time is limited, it is very difficult for volunteers to cover for a large number of calls. As a result, there is a limit to the number of calls that can be covered by volunteers before they begin to balk.

The traditional volunteer system has a fire station where the trucks and equipment are stored, and when a fire or other emergency is reported, volunteers respond to the scene while a few volunteers stopping by the station to bring the fire truck(s). Once call loads get to a certain point, and in my experience that’s about 1,200 call outs per year, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain this system. Some volunteer systems respond to EMS calls, and those departments are nearly always over that limit.

It’s at this point that volunteer stations begin having a crew stay at the station, just like a career department. The volunteer crews at the station carry the bulk of the runs, if not all of them.

Even then, there are only a few volunteer departments who manage to maintain a large call volume, and it’s getting more and more difficult to find volunteers nowadays. Especially with the modern trend of EMS and fire being combined, it’s even more difficult. It’s much easier to attract volunteers to fight fires (which volunteers and career firefighters both love to do) than it is to get volunteers to climb out of bed at 2am to wipe some old lady’s ass while picking her up off the bathroom floor. Most EMS calls are not life or death emergencies, and volunteers (neither do career, but you can make them) just don’t like getting out of bed for them.

For those reasons, the busier volunteer departments have to rely on paid EMS and fire crews for at least part of the day each day for the most part, because there simply aren’t enough volunteers to cover those stations at those call volumes.

Those 200 Florida departments who heavily use volunteers tend to be in rural areas where call loads are lower. In fact, all but 19 of those departments are north of Gainesville, with 15 of the 19 in the state’s peninsula being in Glades (pop 13,000 with 5 VFDs), Highlands (pop 100,000 with 6 VFDs), and Hendry (pop 40,000 with 4 VFDs) counties, all counties on the west bank of Lake Okechobee.

There are a large number of hybrid departments- where paid crews are augmented in some way with volunteers, but even that becomes difficult to maintain. One large fire department that is hybrid of which I am aware is Virginia Beach, VA, who staff the EMS side of the department with volunteer rescue personnel.

I was a volunteer for years: in Florida and Virginia Beach, where volunteers spent the night at the station assigned to a fire truck or Rescue Squad (volunteers no longer staff fire engines there), at several departments in Arkansas and in Florida where volunteers respond directly from home. Some of those departments had me getting paid to staff the station during the day while the volunteers were at work.