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Permalink Reply by Moose on June 14, 2012 at 9:00am

This has been a major issue in my area.  With the Firefighter One training nearing 90 hours, and the start of using Saturdays to go to the training center in order to get more done, you have members spending their entire week at either training, meetings, drills or fund raisers and leaving their families behind.  Lets face it, some of the firefighting families of today are not what they used to be years ago.  Some spouses say they support you, but when you start coming home from work and going right out the door for firefighting duties they tend to get rather upset.  My mother used to support my father 100% and I grew up a firehouse brat.  But when I got involved in the firehouse, I got a different issue; I have been divorced once already.  So I guess both the economy and family support (or lack thereof) play big parts in the lack of volunteers.

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Permalink Reply by ashfire on June 14, 2012 at 10:08am

I know many people are out of work because of the economy and many depts are getting less money to spend so either they spread out there hiring of career firefighters, or in my county's case take or spend less for the volunteer side of the dept. The volunteers don't have the classes they need to be operational or the PPEs to use from the county stores.

Many people have walked in wanting to be volunteers but maybe have to turn around to keep a job or two to keep themselfs or their families afloat.

Some have had to move to areas where taxes are not has high to live and have to travel many miles to come hangout at the stataion. In my own station there is just a handful that live in or the next depts area that are close.

The other situation about our area is the change of the populace of the area. When our dept started there was many areas of farming or homes spread out in the area. Now we have many neighborhood communities, bussiness, schools ,roadways etc. Plus you are dealing with a different type of class of people who lifestyles who may not want to spend their time in a firestation.

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on June 14, 2012 at 2:00pm

I would say the economy can be a contributing factor, but I disagree that it is the "cause" of volunteer decline. In fact, I would say the economy is accussed as being the cause for any number of excuses for whatever reason, so why shouldn't we see any different with such a story like this?

 

We have seen the economy being the excuse companies use to revamp, restructure, and decrease employee wages and benefits, yet we see profit margins soar and we still see record bonuses for executives. While the economy may have played a role to adjust some worker wages and benefits, too often the economy was used as an excuse to take away benefits etc as a necessisty to "stay afloat".

 

So now we see a similar aspect in regards to volunteers and the economy as to "blame" for a decline. Again I disagree because the decline was already in progress before the economy tanked. If the economy miraculously went to a booming economy, does anyone honestly think the issue with volunteer decline is going to change?

 

Instead I see this decline as a long time coming and there are many factors contributing rather than just the economy. Sure a poor economy can play a role, less job opportunities in smaller communities, less take home leading to multiple jobs and so forth, but there is more to the picture. We often hear about the time committment involved to be a member and with people being so involved in any multitude of activities, the time committment left to be a volunteer is reduced.

 

Then we have training and educational standards. Where in the past, many volunteer depts were run as a "good ol boys" club and one could ask to be a member, get gear, and start running calls, today we see a reduced focus on that "club" mentality and more on a professional approach.....as it probably should be. Then at the same time we hear the complaints about volunteers having to meet such standards and training requirements which can have a negative impact on new members etc. Let's face it the fire service is continually evolving and as we learn more on fire tactics, strategies, hazards, and so forth, we can't sufficiently rely upon the tactics and startegies of years past.

 

Let's also look at the aspect of population and call volume. Where we have seen more volunteers in the past, we typically seen a less call volume. In the past we have seen a FD being dedicated to a fire response. Today we see that expectation for response for everything, but more specifically medical responses. Hey, no doubt an EMS call is not as "glamorous" as a fire, you don't see an influx of vollies showing up for a person puking and sick call as you would for a fire, and with most calls being EMS in nature, hence less interest. The population is aging in many places, especially smaller communities as kids move away etc, you have less to choose from for volunteers. Then there is the aspect of urban sprawl in many one predominently all volunteer depts, thus leading to an increase in call volume, because you see more people moving into an area because of less taxes, etc.....yet the FD finds they can't keep up with an influx of calls with decreasing members. As such you have seen many traditionally all volunteer depts going to combination and hiring full time members.

 

Then you also have an issue with control and fifedoms. Whereas a dept may have to look at things like mergers, going combination, ceding to a tax authority and so forth. We have seen on forums like this and other places the resistence to change the dept structure because of the loss of control and say. How many examples have we seen with people coming on here and complaining of difficulties with finances etc, but refuse to talk to a community leaders for fear of ceding control of the dept?

 

 

There really are more examples, anything from a more involved, multi-tasking lifestyle, the focus on more involvement in a variety of activities and so forth that all contribute to a decline in volunteers. There basically is more to the picture of decline than to just sit back and point at the economy as the sole blame for a reduction. It never is that simple, the economy may play a part, but is not the real cause for decline, it is just the boogeyman of the day for anything today.

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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on June 14, 2012 at 3:04pm

John covered most of the issues regarding a decline in volunteer firefighters, but I'd like to add a couple of thoughts.

Unlike 30, or even 20 years ago, most people are commuting longer distances for work.  And people have moved further into rural areas and extended suburban areas to get away from the cities, traffic, noise, crime and for better schools as well as lower taxes.

In an affluent suburb it's not uncommon to have only one wage earner in a household, the other usually being the primary caregiver for children.  Also the larger building lots and setbacks isolate neighbors from each other.  Most people typically associate with others in their 'strata' and is pretty much a 'Housewives of...' type of situation.

Lack of interest in community involvement probably has more to do with declining vollie numbers than any economic indicator.  Between helicopter parents who insist on enrolling precious into a variety of activities (all, I suspect to mostly keep them occupied and out of the house) and socializing/social climbing, the thought of sweating, getting dirty, going to drills and in general acting like blue collar help isn't something these folks have a desire to get involved with.

Even for those people that want to get involved, work commutes and possibly irregular business hours may not be conducive to joining their VFD.  For those folks that do work in town (or nearby) and are members, they may not be able to respond to daytime calls simply because their employer will not let them go.  In talking to a couple of people, despite their pitch to be community oriented, neither Home Depot nor Walmart allows employees to leave for fire calls.

So rather than a decline in vollies being a reflection of the economy, I think it comes down to selfishness.  On the part of many residents, who simply have 'better things to do,' as well as on the part of local businesses who claim that they can't allow employees to leave because they would 1) lose money and 2) depend on those employees so they can run their businesses.

Perhaps the single best way to get more vollies would be to provide tax incentives to businesses that hire (and release) volunteer firefighters and encourage their employees to join their local fire department.  Anything from a reduction in local property tax to write offs at the state and federal level income taxes could encourage more businesses to participate.

Granted a convenience store/gas station may not be able to release an employee for a fire call, but many big box stores certainly could.  Many of these big box stores may donate money, products or services as a write off but in doing so they really are just throwing a couple of bucks out into the community, a feel-good, PR stunt that allows them to promote their 'involvement' in the community and of course, it's all tax deductible.

But if businesses actually encouraged and released vollies for fire calls they would then have a right to promote their community involvement.  Imagine a sign at the entrance to a big box that stated: "This business promotes community involvement by allowing any of our employees who are firefighters in the [blank] Volunteer Fire Department, to leave during their shift to respond to calls.  If we appear shorthanded we apologize, but we're out helping people in your community."

Of course, like better funding, decent wages, health insurance and retirement businesses are no more prone to being useful than local government is.  Businesses want (need) to make a profit (for shareholders and executives) and allowing employees to leave would just be too 'complicated' and (local) government only understands reelection, and that can only be accomplished if they pander to the least common denominator, most often, lower taxes.

Ultimately, in the end it will be the reverse of the topic of this discussion: Rather than the dog (economy) wagging the tail (declining volunteer firefighters), it will be the other way around.  When the number of vollies drops to the point where a department can't handle its call volume the community will have no choice but to go combi or fully paid.  In either case, the increase in taxes will affect everyone regardless of the greater economy, and then it will be the tail wagging the dog.  Not having any (or enough) vollies will mean less money in peoples pockets.  Maybe not a bad thing...if you're one of the people looking for a job as a fireman.

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on June 15, 2012 at 12:57am

Along with this, can be the change in society attitude of the "do it for me" type of approach. It sure seems that many people today expect things now and with little to no effort and along with that comes fire protection.

 

Along with that is the aspect affecting many career/combo depts with elected officials who truly don't understand the intricacies involved in the fire realm. A good example is the aspect of "response times" while many depts can effect a decent response time, the reality is the response time is the time from when the call gets toned to arrival on scene. As such you see many volly/combo depts swaying this with an officer/chief arrival in a POV/chief vehicle....yet can't affect a fire operation. While response time may be 5 or 6 minutes....actual arrival of crews that can actually mitigate the emergency is much later.

Depts use this to skew numbers for any number of reasons and elected officials tout this for their own reasons. What happens is the general public start to have a sense of security without an actual understanding of the disparity and need for new volunteers. Instead of volunteering, they in turn see the patronizing of a fundraiser etc as "doing their part" as opposed to looking to volunteer themselves. Afterall, why volunteer, "we have great response times" as it is.

This is another reason I disagree with the aspect and notion that those residents understand their services level and so forth, as some have touted on here. Instead one can work in a community with a career staffed FD, see them in operation more regularly, and commute home and expect their struggling VFD is under the same type of operation.

 

Overall, between what Jack and I have mentioned, just goes to show there is more of a reason for volunteer FF decline than just the economy. I would say such articles like posted are more of a sympathetic approach to gain membership, rather than a realistic reason for a decline.

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Permalink Reply by ashfire on June 15, 2012 at 10:30am

One thing to look at is what are our own members are doing to the dept they belong to.

My own dept we are a combo dept which had sleep in and live in members along with a staffing of one to two career drivers. There were times that there would be a full house to a career driver and one volunteer in the house when a call came in. Sometimes there would be members to answer up and bring another unit or another station or stations would be on the call. Most time we didn't have a full house was because someone had a party and many were not able to be riding. Think "That 70s Show".

Up to about the lates 90s we had members living in the station, had their areas and storage, had jobs to go to no problems and then we elected a chief that changed the rules and forced out the live ins, convenced many to get career fire dept jobs or just forced many to leave our dept and join other volunteer depts around our area.

The guy is a great firefighter but as a people person he is the pits. He has down talk members, used terms of names on members or in his own way drove out people that could be a hazard to continue to be in the position he is in.

We have also had members that had administrative control that almost brought our dept to the edge of fincial problems and questable dealings of our depts finances.

There were times that members would plan a public event have everything worked out ready to go and they would step in change everything and make it something else and if it failed to bring in the public they would grab up what wasn't used like food and take it home with them.

We keep trying to bring in new people but with our county needing money it causes many to get tired of waiting for what they need to become riding members and leave to another station or just give up the whole idea.

Response times for the crews in the whole county has also changed. When the call comes over the radio the crews have two mins to be on the street. That involving having to put on all PPE and mount the unit or waking up, stuble out the bunkroom gear up and roll out before communications starts calling units to see if they are responding.

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