Excerpts from bbc.com:
Much of the US relies heavily on non-career firefighters, but their ranks are dwindling. If the problem doesn’t abate, there’s a lot at stake.
During Covid-19, I – like many others – found myself wondering what I could do to help. After passing by a local fire station many times, I checked out the department’s website and found that they needed volunteers.
I knew volunteer fire departments existed, but I didn’t think my town, an 8,500-person suburb of New York City – Hastings-on-Hudson, 20 miles (32km) from Midtown Manhattan – had one. I was also surprised to learn that even in the largest metropolitan area in the US, a large percentage of the population doesn’t have full-time fire departments.
Instead, volunteer firefighters do the work that paid, professional – “career” – firefighters do. They are essential to their US communities. Yet many of these volunteer departments, especially across rural and suburban areas, are struggling.
They often have a shortage of people willing to do the job. Even when new recruits join, many simply can’t commit to being on-call or at a firehouse as they juggle careers and family dynamics. And those who do stay are often older men who are close to aging out; at 38, I am one of the younger members at my firehouse.
Of the more than one-million firefighters in the US, 65% of them are volunteers, according to data from the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC). Of the more than 29,000 fire departments across the country, almost 19,000 of them are run completely by volunteers.
Internationally, that’s not entirely unusual. In many European countries, the fire service is composed mostly of volunteers – a list that includes Austria, Germany and Portugal. Australia also relies heavily on volunteer firefighters, as do parts of the UK. But the US’s reliance is particularly significant, due to the country’s larger geographic footprint and population.
About 85% of the US population is covered by career departments, which means most households live in areas serviced by full-time fire departments. Yet that still leaves 15% of the country in the hands of volunteers.
In Kansas, volunteers probably protect 85% of the state, which is similar to other largely rural states. In Iowa, the figure is 92%. In Minnesota, paid-on-call or volunteer firefighters comprise 97.5% of the state’s firefighting force.
These are the areas most likely to struggle to find volunteers, as there’s a smaller population to draw from; and some volunteers, especially younger ones, may move away.
The number of volunteer firefighters in the US numbered nearly 898,000 in 1984, but only around 677,000 in 2020, according to the NVFC data. During that time, the number of calls to those departments has more than tripled, from less than 12 million nationwide in 1986, to more than 36.6 million in 2021.
The severity of the issue varies from city to city and state to state. In New York, it is glaring. Since the late 1990s, there has been a 32% decrease in the amount of volunteering while the amount of calls has gone up 29%.
Several factors are in the affect volunteers including the state of the economy where you need to have one or two jobs and childcare to be able to volunteer. In years past, many volunteers – often men – were able to come home from their jobs, put in the hours and go on calls on evenings and weekends while depending on their spouses for care. Even today, only 11% of volunteer firefighters and 5% of career firefighters in the US are women.
By definition, firefighting is also dangerous – a problem that’s always looming. There are health effects to consider – both mental and physical. It can be emotionally draining, too, especially for volunteers who end up on particularly grisly calls and have trouble processing what they’ve seen. Firefighters exposed to various hazardous substances also increase their risks of developing cancer or other diseases, which is a concern for potential recruits.
The USFA has been identifying ways to help volunteer departments fill their classes and keep those recruits. In 2022 and 2023, the USFA held summits, bringing together numerous leaders in the fire service to try and “get a sense of the scope and the scale”.
Potential solutions, some of which are included in the USFA’s recently published recruitment and retention manual, include apprenticeship programs for the fire service, which could help young people see it as a viable career path. Mentorship programs are another retention strategy, as is family support.
The US federal government also offers financial incentives in the form of grants to many departments, many are available through Fema, including Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (Safer) grants.
One way to fix the staffing situation would be to replace volunteer departments with career departments. However, the financial burden would likely fall on community members with tax increases.
thanks Martin
#1 by bob on January 31, 2024 - 12:36 PM
Ryan, I agree with your view on this topic and appreciate the response. Unfortunately I don’t feel much compassion for the people that will sell their soul to get that position before they have enough years on the job to be able to walk in and take a stand knowing that ultimately they may lose their job, but its because they stood up for what is right. I think there are minimal issues where the its my way or fire me approach would be needed, but when you still need the job to even reach the milestones to qualify for a pension and make the KMA club, you have zero chance of even taking that extreme leadership stance. It is one of those situations that make sure you can walk the walk before you consider taking a job where it can ultimately cost you your job for doing the right thing because you are “at will”. It is a shame that even at the higher levels of leadership within municipalities that with all of the education they claim to have, that a person would have to fear for their job for doing what is right. I hope they all keep leaving and the fire service stops recycling.
#2 by Ryan on January 28, 2024 - 1:54 PM
I think there’s another aspect to this. Some departments have good leadership that fight for them, for their department to succeed. But, that same leadership is handcuffed by the people running the towns. They can voice their opinion and concerns all they want, end of the day, it sometimes can be the Village Mangers and Assistant Village Managers that see things differently…more cost effective driven, or trying to save a buck. They’d rather run short and pay OT than pay for pension costs. If leadership speaks up, they may be out of a job because they are “at will”.
#3 by Mike on January 26, 2024 - 6:13 PM
Bob you bring up a very big reason why people leave. Self serving idiots that infest the ranks and make priorities of making sure the cabinets are dusted or the chiefs car is washed and waxed first before training. Or management not even considering the increase in workloads and understaffing and what that does to people. They don’t know and they don’t care because they don’t listen. If they acknowledged the problem that would mean they would have to address it. That’s Why do so many guys leave this job so bitter.
#4 by Bob on January 26, 2024 - 11:18 AM
Interest in this job is lessening in every part of the county. Yes, i would agree with the idea that it currently is impacting volunteer departments the most; however, career departments and other staffing types are not far behind. I saw a number on a news story a few months back that prior to COVID, there were 22,000 paramedics in illinois. We are now down to 8,000. Testing session use to have several hundred people taking the test often for one opening. Currently you are lucky if you can get enough people at your test to fill all your vacancies. (Oh the psych, background, and polygraph usually takes care of a good portion of that list too leaving you needing to test again in 6 months and not being able to fill the spots).
The trickle down effect is being felt buy the fire services. Some full time fire departments are missing almost entire shifts, forcing the remaining members to work 36 hours on 36 off to cover the time. This absolutely accelerates the journey to burnout. Changes to the pension law making new hires go into a tier two system that makes them work longer and for less of a benefit could have something to do with it.
In my 25 years in the fire service, I can say i have never heard the conversation about doing your time and getting out asap as loud as I am hearing it right now. We are so worried about recruitment, but it seems that employee retention is a concept that many who run the fire service have never even considered. The fire service is filled with talent, yet they are choosing to walk away earlier than ever. Has anyone stopped and asked anyone who has a clue “why?”, or are the people in charge completely oblivious to it?
All of the firefighters that I personally know that have left before they were eligible for a pension and walked away from the fire service made it clear it wasn’t because of the pay, or the work, or anything else those in charge want to believe contributed to it. It is overwhelmingly a problem with the leadership of the fire service.
There are things other than pay that make people want to come to work everyday and stay until you age them out. Respect, being treated fair, valued, and other things that I am sure were covered in an EFO class somewhere that have seemed to have been long forgotten. Remember the hierarchy of needs….if you want people to make it to there top performance level, you have to meet their basic needs.
Take a long look in the mirror if you are a person in charge of a department and ask yourself an honest question; when your firefighters need you to use all that education that you proudly display on your office wall are you the kind of person who is going to stand up to your boss if something is wrong for your department or are you just going to let them continue to pull the strings and run your department morale into the ground? I tell you what, look at your staffing and how many vacancies you have currently. If you can’t fill the spots, odds are you already showed people how you perform in that situation and that is why no one wants to work for you.
The fire service needs a change to combat personnel shortages. This job needs to be made back into what it once was, when everyone wanted it. When people were willing to work for $6.25 an hour as a medic at a second fire department job because they loved it that much. Think what you want to about all of the current self-anointed greats of the fire service, but i have a different opinion of how they have contributed to the fire service to get it to where it is today.