Volunteer fire departments across the region face staffing problems, and in a tough economy, these fire departments are seeing less and less new firefighters.
This poses a huge problem when many local volunteer fire departments say during the week it's hard to find enough firefighters to even respond to an emergency call.
“Its fairly seldom you have anybody want to come in and volunteer for the fire department in this area,” says Embreeville Volunteer Fire Chief Earl Greene who adds that a structure fire requires at least 12 firefighters. A number he says they don't often have, ”During the day you're lucky to get 4 or 5 people from this department.”
Greene says one reason firefighters are hard to come by is many new ones aren't dedicated.
“If they're young, then they want to run calls. If they don't run so many calls usually they'll drift away from the fire department.”
Lt. Joshua Chastain with Bloomingdale Fire Department says many want the title but don't want to work.
“People come down and they want to be named as the firefighter. They want to get the t-shirt or gear and radio and once they get it, they never come back around,” explains Chastain who adds that they have more than 100 members but only about 15 tend to respond.
Also many new firefighters don’t stick around to complete the months of training required before getting to put out the flames.
“He's got to take classes. Then he's got to take state fire training,” explains Greene. “We request they have Fire Fighter 1 before they can fight the fires or drive the trucks.”
Meaning many local fire departments are seeing an aging crew.
“We've got about five here in the mid-50’s to 80,” says Greene of his own crew. “You slow down when you get in the mid-50’s. Volunteers now they're just hard to come by.”
Officials with Sulphur Springs Volunteer Fire Department say they too are in desperate need of help, but what they see is many young people can't pass the background checks to become fire fighters.
They say if they could stress anything to a future volunteer it's make sure you keep your record clean.
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