My dept. currently has 25 members. We respond to the station when our pagers alert us, which is what I assume most volunteer dept's do. However, I was recently talking to a volunteer FF from a different area who was telling me his dept. is staffed by four volunteers all the time. I thought that was really cool seeing as it means quicker response times, more work getting done around the house, etc. I'm trying to get my dept. to see the benefits of this and maybe enact a dedicated shift program with two firefighters on each shift, Basically enough to immeaditly respond to an EMS call. Anyway... how many of your volunteer dept's run these dedicated shifts? If so, what benefits/issues/problems have you seen in doing so?

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there are benefits to that no doubt as long as you have the man power. i recently got laid off from my job me and bout 3 others so right now we have 4 of us in and out of the station all day doing diffrent little tasks. i.e. cutting grass serviceing are hurst tools starting all the saws. for us to implement something like a shift program would be extremely hard because of the shifts people work. For us (as i'm sure most VFC'S) have a hard time getting FF during the day. where as afternoon and night we are packed.
in our fire department to whichi i was a volunteer, we usually have some personnel which is working in night shift in their respective jobs to manned the day duties..... they are usually replaced by other personnel as a dedicated duty for the night..... each personnel is obliged to have their duties fixed 2-3 times a week so as not to exhaust the manpower. The group is continuesly accepting applicants as provees....... so as to fill in the gap in the manpower rooster,,,,,, Eventually each provees is given taked to perform in the supervision of senior volunteer fire fighter.... in these process we were able to have didicated fire fighters nott so many in the morning shifts...... but jump packed in the night shifts...............
We don't have defined shifts. However there are enough of our members that work in the Village during the day that if we are toned out for a fire we have usually a 10 person crew at most. EMS on the other hand, sometimes we are lucky to have a driver let alone an EMT or 2. If I am not working that day, I usually come down and catch up on things that I have to do. I am a Line Officer and Business Officer so there's something for me to do here other then the usual routine of maintenance and the like. Now after about 1530 they come out of the woodwork for any little thing that we get. We had one time for a "routine" ambulance call, 3 drivers and 4 Basic EMT's, and 3 ALS Providers show up.
We respond when the pager goes off. My thoughts on this is: It works great for busy depts. but im not sold on it workn for low call volume depts. I think the members on shift will get board with it after a while and the members not on the shift will say the guys on will handle it. Plus we are blessed with always havin a good turnout weather day/nite.
We used to house 4 volunteers who would staff an engine and then the rest of the volunteers would respond here to the station and go out from there. We needed the room so now we dont have the program. I have been looking to find the room again as it provided a lot of benefits to the Department. Currently we do not have scheduling of our 40 volunteers. The only exception is myself and Asst Chief (we both are full time paid) take the duty at nights and weekends. At some point I would like to re-implement a schedule but it would be based upon having a sleeper program as well.
sadly we are to small to do such a thing but i can see the benefits of it we had a couple of calls the other week one which was a mutual assist and i was the only ff to show up to the station and the other was a false alarm again i was the only one to show at the station wit another ff ringing in for a pick up keeping in mind both calls were daytime normally we can put a crew together even if the others meet us there
Well some time if bad weather is in the forcast we have a duty crew but most of the time we have 3 or 4 guys in station and weekdays alot of our members work for PWD so you can say they are paid department lol
For years we had guys around the firehouse during the day so there was always a crew in station. We were lucky enoung to run 2 engines daytime. Most of them have jobs now so it's hit and miss daytimes. Now we have rotating duty crews at night with 2 other stations. The duty crew and district station is hit out and its up to the district the alarms is in to respond if they want along with the duty crew. Usually the duty handles most non structure alarms. They also respond outside of the 3 station area if its a working alarm.
ok i gutta question. With each station being manned by one paid on call ff 24/7/365. How does that work, what can one guy do honestly its a little pointless to have one guy staffing a station, bc hes still going to have to wait for more man power or the other 2 stations to show up on scene before he can do really anything. Let me know whats up with that i want to know.
We Have one station, and the only dedicated shift we have is
from 8 am to 4 pm , Mon. Thru Fri.
usaly 1 paid ff is normaly a driver those are the hardest things to get in my area includeing mutal aid Connellsville and Uniontown PA have a small crew of paid personnel and the yare drivers mainly (not 100% positive though)
Dunbar dosen't have a dedicated shift we kinda call the people that work nights are day shift but they are not sitting at station. Me since i am unemployed am at station off and on and take care of alot of upkeep unless i at a interveiw, home or running errands but i always have my pager. once 1700 comes around we start picking up other able bodied men to run calls but are "day shift" still will run the call if able we don't sit back and say well they will take care of it.

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