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Permalink Reply by Timothy J. Gaffney, Jr. on February 15, 2013 at 7:31am

I've been with numerous fire departments, both volunteer and combination, and each have their way(s) of doing things.  This is my experience in upstate New York.

 

Seems that smaller fire departments (20 to 40 members) have the best of luck with keeping up with a minimum number of calls compared to larger fire departments (50 to 100 members) where you get a core group of members that are always around compared to the rest of the group. 

 

The fire departments with small memberships that I was with averaged 200 to 300 calls (fire and no ems) a year.  The percent is 10% of calls a year and maybe 12 drills or so.  The larger membership fire departments average 600 to 1500 calls (fire and ems) a year.  Some fire departments have 10% or 20% but mostly 10% around here.  But once the call volume for the fire department gets past 500 calls then your percent you have to achieve is 7.5%, which is a nice little break.  Of course, there are 12 drills to participate besides work details and meetings and so on depending on your by-laws or SOP/SOG of the fire company.

Part of the requirements set forth come from Penflex which helps manage the LOSAP (Length Of Service Award Program) for certain fire departments that volunteer to be in the program. Check out the website: http://www.penflexinc.com/

 

Sometimes these requirements help while at other times they don't.  Depends on the demographics of your organization.  If you want to retain your members then make sure the requirements are well thought out and you keep your "cream of the crop" group instead of a small group of individuals who don't have their heart and mind set in firefighting. 

 

You might have to experiment and try some trial programs to see how it would work out for you and the membership.  I know some fire departments that have given a dollar a call and a dollar a drill and a dollar a work detail to members which is borderline paid-on-call any way.  Even with this program I haven't noticed the membership to increase or stay consistent and retain the members very well.  The average life-span of a volunteer firefighter is 4 to 5 years around here and I'm sure for most of the country.  Gets expensive when you purchase a set of $1200 bunker gear and putting them through training and other activities that you invest money into them. 

 

Nowadays you have to be very creative and custom make a program to your fire department's liking.  I wish you good luck and keep safe!

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Permalink Reply by Curt Raue on February 16, 2013 at 1:04am

I am on a volunteer deoartment in Iowa that runs between 100 and 150 calls, and 600 to 650 EMS calls a year.  We meet every week plus a couple saturdays throughout the year.  We require probationary members to make 50 percent of the training meetings in their first year.  We also require to take the first available firefighter 1 class.  Full time members must have 50 percent attendance to all activities in order to be elected as an officer.  Also, if we have a full roster and we get suitable applicants, the department can vote to remove the member with the lowest attendance. 

 

Members are not required to be on the EMS crew.  About half are and cover one or two twelve hour shifts a week. 

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