In Brief:
- Firefighter volunteering has been declining for years, hitting a new all-time low in 2020.
- Fire stations now do all kinds of work, including responding to medical emergencies and disasters. That has increased the amount of time volunteers need to spend in training.
- Around the country, fire departments are honing their recruitment and outreach efforts. Some are even offering cash on occasion.
Each year, a group of about 60 girls in grade school in Botetourt County, Va., spend a day learning about fire safety and emergency response. An instructor teaches them what to do if a wounded person is bleeding heavily and shows them a set of healthy lungs compared to a set of smoker’s lungs. A flight medic shows off a helicopter. Older girls put on fire gear and use extraction tools to cut up cars, just as they might during a rescue. At the end of the day, a local guidance counselor talks to them about self-care, mental health and leadership.
This is all part of Botetourt County’s Girls' Fire Camp, just one of many efforts to raise the community’s awareness about the work of their fire department. As with other such events, it’s a chance to encourage more residents to volunteer, explains Taylor Lunsford, who was hired in 2021 to fill a newly created role: recruitment and retention specialist.
Across the country, many fire departments are struggling to attract and keep volunteers. “When I came into the role, the goal was trying to get as many folks to apply [as we could],” Lunsford says. “A lot of it is trying to get the awareness out in the community that there are opportunities to volunteer, then gain the small pool of those that are willing to be committed to it and do the training.”
Botetourt County, which lies just north of Roanoke along the Blue Ridge Parkway, has a combination fire department that relies on a mix of volunteers and paid employees. A majority of American communities rely on volunteers to make up some, or all, of their firefighting force. Sixty-five percent of fire service is done by volunteers, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council.
But the number of volunteer firefighters in the U.S. hit a low in 2020, the last year for which the council has numbers. There were 677,000 volunteers that year, down nearly 20 percent from the 827,000 volunteers around the country just 12 years earlier.
At the same time, the number of calls made to fire departments has been growing. Departments are increasingly asked to respond to medical emergencies, vehicle crashes, hazards, natural disasters and other non-fire events. “Recruitment of volunteer firefighters really has become a national, urgent issue,” says Eddie Phillips, state recruitment and retention coordinator for the Tennessee Fire Chiefs Association.
Stretched Thin
Forty years ago, a single fire department in eastern North Carolina could handle a house fire on its own, according to Tracy Mosley, assistant executive director of the state Association of Fire Chiefs. Now, there are so few volunteers at each station that firefighters often have to be summoned from four different stations to gather enough people to handle the job.
“That’s pulling other resources out of other communities to feed the need of personnel that are lacking,” Mosley says. “They’re miles away from their territory.”
Because there aren’t enough personnel, volunteers can burn out. Some formerly all-volunteer communities have begun hiring on-staff firefighters to fill the gaps, but many lack the financial means to do so.
What Happened to Volunteers?
A range of economic and cultural factors is reducing the supply of volunteers. Many volunteers sign up when they’re young but then move away for work or switch from volunteer firefighting to making a career of it. Some may later return during retirement, but that leaves a big gap of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s, Mosley says.
Some prospects are already juggling multiple jobs, long commutes and kids. And becoming a volunteer firefighter can be a major undertaking. Obtaining the basic level of firefighting certification often takes about five months, with volunteers taking 120 hours of classes. The amount of required training has grown as departments respond to more types of hazards.
Still, chiefs say one of the biggest barriers to volunteering is that it never even occurs to many people. “A lot of folks don’t realize that they’re protected by a volunteer fire department,” Phillips says. “They just know, ‘I call 911 and the fire department comes.’”
Many people may not believe they have the skills to help. They may not realize they can get training to fight fires or that they can help in other ways. Mosley notes that a diesel mechanic can volunteer maintaining trucks, a financial specialist can help with budgets and a schoolteacher could offer public education on fire safety.
People also need to be able to see themselves in the role. Some firefighters carry cards in their pockets that have a QR code linked to volunteer sign-up sites. Mosley notes that his home department in Silver Lake has been putting up recruitment banners featuring photos of firefighters of different races and genders.
Last year, Botetourt County’s department won an award for its recruitment and retention. It uses a mix of efforts including social media, high school visits and the girls’ camp. That county, along with some others, is offering occasional cash payments or scholarships to some volunteers.
The biggest way to get people to stay is to make the fire department feel like friends and family, Phillips says. Some take this literally, hosting family nights and trying to get spouses involved, too. One department built a playground next to its station for participants’ children.
As departments consider how to better recruit and retain, they can draw on ideas from peers across the country.
“You don't have to necessarily reinvent the wheel. You just have to get a little creative with it,” Lunsford says. “It's not necessarily finding the new best idea, it's finding how to make the idea work for you and what your area needs.”
